I've read on the forum somewhere (but I don't seem to find it anymore) that you have to boil the ceramic media to clean it. How often should I do that and what portion of the media should be boiled at the same time?

Something else why does that ceramic stuf change color? when I bought it, it all had the same color. Now some are pastelcolors (very light colored) pink, orange, yellow and green. The green seems logical, but why the other colors?


edit for spelling mistakes that I always see after I posted

I would never boil the media unless you had a bad outbreak of disease in your tank. The thing with ceramic media is it's a great place for beneficial bacteria to grow, so if you boil it you'll likely crash your cycle. As for the colors, those can most likely be attributed to bacteria and algae. Do you have colored gravel in your tank? That can sometimes leech color into your water as well.

No flashy colors, the gravel I have is black and it doesn't even cover 1/6 of the bottom of my tank if I would sweep it together.

Boiling is usede when you wish to sterilize your media and start over. It is never done on a regular basis for any reason other than complete sterilization and resetting of a tank that has had a catastrophic illness - as stated above. Boiling is better because it leaves no residual chemicals behind in the nooks and crannies as using a chemical to sterlize might.

In some types (brands) of media, I have found that, after "seasoning", they do seem to take on pastel colors - mostly blues and a few pinkish colors. This appears to be something inherant in the type of ceramic that was used. I do not think it is something to be concerned about.

I only buy the media made by Eheim, now-a-days. It seems to hold up better, be of better size for use in any situation, and does not dicolor or break apart.

True, the Eheim media are now easely recognised amoung the other ceramic stuff, as they didn't change color

i also love the eheim media...

they fit everywhere
are easy to rinse off during cleanings
don't crumble easily like other porous media like matrix
and are wonderful!!!

if you've got HOB you can also just chuck them in there
or even put it in a media back then put it in for easy removal and rinsing...


just thought i might add my

I have to admit that I was suprised how much of that media fits in my canisterfilter, I think I have 3 kg in it, and that in only one of the three baskets. No problem if I ever need to seed a new filter