I clean my filter sponges under the cold tap and squeeze until the water runs nearly clear. It just unclogs them and still has plenty of bacteria on for the tank. My present tank has been in situ now for 18 months and gets a partial water change once every 2 weeks. I do a test occasionally and find that everything is as it should be. I suffer no fish losses, no disease and the plants are growing like.....er....weeds. As you can see from the pic in my sig, it is fairly heavily planted.
Mind you I do all kinds of things which the 'experts' say not to do, like keeping a siamese fighting fish male in the community tank. He has been in it since I set it up and is thriving along with everything else. Apart from one dwarf gourami and a couple more minnows, all the fish in my tank are the ones I out in when it was set up 18 months ago.
Saying that, I would never clean the filter sponges using anything but cold water, certainly no detergents etc but a good squeeze in cold running water to clear the debris should not kill the bacteria .

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have you got a testest kit for the water
test: nirate,nitrite and ammonia

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You really shouldn't rinse in cold tap water. a lot of bacteria wil die off. It may work but don't recommend it. Much safer just to squeeze out in a bucket of tank water. Much less bacteria will die off and it's just a bit etc piece of mind for a little extra work

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Well all I can say is that a lot of fish keepers say not to do it but in 25 years keeping fish, I've always done it this way. Surely the fact that my tank stats are good and I suffer zero disease and no losses, commends the method. If it killed off all the bacteria why would the tank, plants and fish be so healthy and thriving? I would never use hot water but cold water alone would not kill off any bacteria hence you wouldn't wipe your toilet seat or work surfaces just with cold water alone and expect it to be clean. Not being argumentative here, just debating and challenging the idea that rinsing etc is bad. Certainly in a diseased tank, I may do things differently as the disease causing bacteria would still be thriving in a filter sponge whether it was rinsed in tap water or tank water.
I'm not a scientist or bacteriologist and can only speak about my own personal experience. It's for eveyone to decide which method suits them best I suppose. Same as when I was told never to put a male betta into a community tank even though I have always had one. When I went back to tropical fish after a 20 year break and went to a fish forum to find out about more modern ways and equipment I was told never to do this and never to do that and had my confidence knocked as it appeared that despite having a thriving communal tank for years, I was doing it all wrong. So I left the forum and did what I have always done successfully and here we are 18 months later with my present tank as well as my previous ones were and my betta as glorious as he was when I put him and the other fish into the tank.

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It's not the cold water that kills the bacteria, it's the chlorine.

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in an old, established tank, often beneficial bacteria live on nearly every surface in the tank. it's all about surface area. in many cases, rinsing filter sponges in chlorinated water has no effects but for me it's just easy to sqeeze out filter media in the waste water from my weekly siphoning...

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So hypothetically, you could simply rinse the baby's bottles out in cold water and the chlorine will kill all the bacteria and make it safe to feed the baby from? Or just rinse your dishes in cold water and they'll be clean and bacteria free?

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Nope, fish tank bacteria are delecate little things (not like nasties - they're strong buggers!), the chlorine in tap water will kill them off.
The reason you get away with it, is that I guess your tank is well established and the gravel/plants etc are also covered in the good bacteria. This will help keep the levels sorted as long as the fish/bacteria balance is ok - which it obviously is in your tank!

The filter gets the best water flow, so this is where new bacteria set up home. They spread around the tank from there. Kill them off before they spread and they're never found in high enough amounts to deal with the fish waste.

It sounds like the tank has high ammonia or nitrite due to a lack of filter bacteria.

Low feeding, big water changes, and leave the filter alone as much as possible - always rinse in old tank water. Also never change the whole sponge at the same time, you'll be throwing all the bacteria in the bin - cut in half and change half at a time, at least 6 weeks between changing each half.

Get a test kit so you can keep an eye on what's happening in there. Remember you may lose these fish way after your problems with the water have stopped as ammonia and nitrite can damage the gills permanantly.

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A lot of people keep/kept goldfish in small bowls and just emptied and filled from the tap,many fish survived for years,many didnt.Still doesnt mean its the correct way to do things,like already said,you probably have a good balance in your tank with stocking and bacteria on decor,it wont take much to affect that and with effectively no filter running i predict you will have a problem one day.Still,each to their own i guess

Well as was explained in the post above yours, I probably have plenty of bacteria in the tank anyway on the plants, substrate etc. As for having a problem one day, since I have a master kit and test sporadically, I imagine I would be able to nip any problem in the bud. As I said before, I have kept tropical fish for <works it out>30 years apart from the 2 year break and in all that time I had practically no fish losses and no disease. With that track record, there must be something to be said for "effectively no filter" then eh?

It's a bit like someone saying that exersize will kill you and who keeps telling you this, then after you have lived for a healthy trouble free life for 75 years, you have a stoke and die. The person then turns round and tells people that for the last 50 years he has been telling the dead person that exersize will kill him and look how he was proved right lol.
No doubt at some point, I might have a problem with water quality or disease or something. If and when that happens, no doubt you'll be able to tell me that you warned me about cleaning my filter sponges

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