How to clean felt water polishing pads

Our Polishing Filter Pad’s dense fiber network traps large to very fine particles floating in your freshwater or saltwater aquarium to produce sparkling clear water. Its durable design allows this pad to be cleaned and reused many times.

Place our polishing pad in the path of flowing water to trap floating debris from the water. This filter pad is very efficient at trapping very fine particles, so please clean the pad regularly. This pad can be used alone or layered with other filter pads such as our Classic or Premium filter pads to extend cleaning time.

Cleaning Directions:

The cleaning methods shared here are for polishing pads used only as a mechanical filter to trap floating debris from the water and not as a media to grow beneficial bacteria. 

Normal Method

Clean our polishing pad by rinsing it in fresh water, wring out and repeat this process until the water runs clean. If you ever need to deep clean our polishing pads they are durable enough to be cleaned in a washing machine.

Clean with Washer

• Since this method uses a washing machine, it may be more efficient to collect several filter pads [from previous changes]

  before using it.

  
  

• Optional - run your washer in a hot rinse cycle to remove all soap residue (normally only necessary in older machines).

  
  

• Set washer to heavy-duty cycle and wash pads in hot water. (Note: any temperature seems to give good results with this method.)

  
  

• Use 3 capfuls (teaspoons) dye- and fragrance-free bleach (Sodium hypochlorite with no additives).

• DO NOT Use OxiClean, laundry detergent, or any other soap product.

• Add an extra rinse cycle at the end of the wash to ensure the bleach is removed.

• After you remove pads from the washer they may still have a hint of bleach smell.

Drying your Pads

• Should you need socks sooner - place them in a bucket with 2 gallons of water with 1/5 teaspoon of Aquatic Experts Premium Complete Water Conditioner or similar chlorine remover for 30 minutes.

      -Or-

• Polishing pads can be dried in a clothes dryer but USE LOW HEAT ONLY! Obviously no fabric softeners or anything else.