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Up until now I have been doing weekly maintenance which includes rinsing the 2 sponges from the filter in the removed tank water. The past few weeks the rinsing of the sponges turns the removed water (which is discarded anyway so not important) really really dirty/grimey. I changed one of the sponges in case that was part of the problem but that hasn't made any difference. The only thing that I can put this down too is that I am over-run with shrimps, so I may need to up my culling each week (2 at present). The tank water looks fine and the parameters are still perfect/stable but I obviously need to do something. I am thinking of rinsing the sponges half way between the weekly maintenance but don't want really to change anything in the tank that may cause a problem or stress, so I was considering getting 2 litres of TAPWATER (unfiltered but dechlorinated) to literally just squeeze the sponges in and then discard the water. Is this going to be safe for everything, bacteria etc, even though it is different water to the tank water - I would squeeze out as much of the then dirty tap water as possible before putting the sponges back in place in the tank so it shouldn't affect the water parameters/TDS etc as there won't be any changed water in the tank? The shrimps are breeding too well I guess so I am going to have to start culling more I guess, but that I will think about separately over the holiday period to start in the new year.......... All thoughts/advice will be gratefully received. Simon