Canister Filter Maintenance

How often do you guys clean your canister filters on average? Once a month, every two months?

 

Hey buddy, you should be cleaning at every water change..... Generally for nightly, then again that depends on the fish

 

I wouldn't say clean, just a rinse in tank water at wc's should be fine.

 

Once every 6 months rinse the media.

 

Once a month here... cleaned mine out this weekend and it was filthy. Might up this to every second week since the filter is smaller than my previous one. The sponge of the intake is cleaned every week.

 

I haven't opened mine in 3 years, mainly because each time i opened them up they would leak and i needed to use the warranty to replace them (to a point where the shop refused) Not even replacing the seals helped and at some point i thought about using a water tight glue to keep it closed forever.

 

I do once a month however, it also depends on what fish you keep and how heavily stocked your tank is so what works for some might not work for you

Start off once month and see how it looks ... if you see its very dirty, try every3 weeks. Its the best way to decide on needs of your setup

 

I'd say once a month should be fine, check your nitrates, always a good indicator. I change water every 2nd day no ways i'll clean my filters that often

 

I am with Jwh on this one...And also depends on the size of filter & what media you have , some guys just run their canisters as bio-filters without any floss or batting- yes then you stretch to rinsing in a couple of months , but if your canister is nice & big like ours- rinse every month & replace the floss/batting...my small internal filter which I converted to a minni canister mechanical filtration medium- I replace the batting every week in line with a wc...

 

When I feel it. Don't have set rules to when I clean.

 

Hey everyone. Thanks for all the input. Its lovely to see the community of fishkeepers advising and sharing. I guess it does depend on a few variables, ie, water volume, stock level, filter media etc. I do believe however that there is no "right" amount of time, but definitely the right time when your nitrates is starting to rear its "poisonous head" ,hence @Jwh has a very valid point. One man has two Oscars in a small tank without plants, and the next man has a lush planted system in a nice big tank with only a small school of Cardinals. It is obvious that this first man will need to do filter maintenance more frequently, and as far as I know, Nitrates being the last element in the bio cycle, would be the telling factor. I think I must invest in a Nitrate testing kit, instead of relying on a schedule. I guess smaller, frequent water changes is also the way to go, if you can afford the time.

 

In a planted tank ... when the flow rate has dropped to a point that it no longer acceptable. We keep adding fertz so using nitrates to check in a planted tank would seldom show up a canister that needs maintenance.

I typically have pre-filter sponges on the non e-eheims but in all of them only run 1 layer of filter sponge the rest ceramics / matrix of some sorts. This gives me a good 8 + months with No purigen, batting, charcoal or peat - also means better flow rate in the end.

Later Ferdie

 

How do you buffer/polish the water?

 

Buffer ? as in pH .. don't

Polish .... only if I cause a mess with a rescape then an internal filter with batting for a few hours.

Later Ferdie

 

I assume you clean the pre-filter sponges more often?

 

yeah between 90 and 180 days