kitch40

I'd say if you're replacing them weekly you'd be fine to just take them off. Although... they obviously are trapping things because they are getting clogged up. The main goal with them is to trap that stuff and for it to be removed before it breaks down and goes through the nitrogen cycle... so it would help to replace them more often, every two or three days. That way you're replacing them before they clog, and before more things in them are breaking down. The things that are getting trapped in there are simply going to be trapped elsewhere... likely areas of low flow or pulled out by the skimmer.

ive never used a filter sock before...its just one more thing to worry about and IMO your better off just sucking out some of the crap in your sump when you do water changes

Filter socks keep snails, microbubles and junk out of my pumps. Changed every three days they are worth it to me. Necessary no they're not. Matt pretty much nailed it. If you don't change them often you're better off not using them. I do remove them for a few hours when I broadcast feed my corals.

I had the same problem you did and have gone all over the map with solutions. No sock, sock on every other week, went from 4" to 7" sock, etc... - but i think it came down to the fact that I hate all that crap piling up in my sump (and the micro bubbles - good call).

I finally settled on moving from a 4" sock to a 7" sock and emptying that during the weekend cleaning ritual (PS, algae off glass, checking parameters, modifiying dosing if needed, etc.) I would LOVE to simply buy / build a new sump so that I could have 1/3 of overflow water going directly into a refugium , but the Elos sumps are not really well designed with that in mind (even if I am already trying / hacking a way to do that).

I fundamentally agree with baker.shawns comments about just going minimal and natural - But without a filter sock on, I just find that I am too often on my hands and knees under the tank getting anonoyed at the goby and vortechs for kicking up sand that ended up on the sump floor.

Thanks to all Kitch40