At present I am just over a week into the water cycle of my new tank, it is a Jewel Rekord 800 with the Juwel filter.

According to Juwel the white filter pad should be changed weekly and the carbon pad monthly, I would like to know if this should be done when there are no fish in the tank whilst it is cycling?

My gut feeling is that there is no need to however I would like opinions.

Thanks

Not when cycling.

TBH a lot of manufacturers advise updating media, but foam will last for years at a time and only needs to be changed (a bit at a time) when it gets hard or starts to crumble. Bit of an ongoing money making thing for them really.

Most people remove carbon foam and replace with normal foam. Carbon does adsorb nasties from the tank and gives the water a polished look but it only works for a month or two, and then needs replacing when saturated, which is costly. Most of us just keep it back should re need to remove medications from the water after any treatment. Bear in mind also if planning a planted tanks, carbon will adsorb the ferts too that you actually want.

Once the fishies go in, you may get a week or two out of the white filter wool. This doesn't act as filter media with regards to colonisation it just traps olf poo and bits of food. Chnage it when it's dirty which will be dicated by your stocking. The juwel brand is quite expensive, so I buy a roll of wool from LFS (a few pounds) and just cut a few squares each time I run out.