Crap, your supposed to clean those things! I have a fluval 305 clean it every 3 months give or take a few weeks, also have ac 70 with the bio stuff it came with,plus it has pothos cuttings growing in it, so never have to do anything with that, plus small water changes every day and one big one once a week.
Admit how long without cleaning the filter....
- Thread starter 2songbirds
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I clean the FX5 maybe once a year if I feel ambitious. You don't need to clean sumps. I run my sumps dry when I do a water change, so they get flushed weekly. I change filter socks weekly with the 50% water change. I clean HOB's when they bypass.
Try to keep my HOB's cleaned on a regular basis, have doubles on each tank so I'll alternate cleaning one then the other to not mess with the bio as much. Not as good on the canisters, need to clean a couple now. Good idea noting on the filter when it was cleaned last..
I admit every once in a while I miss a WC beacause I go somewere for the wekkend like this previous weekend. i did clean my oscars tank beacause he is really messsy but ya every once in a while i miss a WC. I clean my canister every few months in my 65 gallon. In my 120 i have never cleaned it yet and has been setup for a little over a month.
How do you run your sumps dry? Drain them with apump and do the wc's through the sumps?
I run powerhead driven sponges in all my tanks and rinse them out in tank water every waterchange. My canisters all have pre filter sponges over the intakes to save frys and I rinse them out every couple weeks too. as for the canisters themselves basically never. When I check the impellors about once a year (if I remember) the bio media seems fine.
I've gone as long as 6 months on some of my canisters. I just recently cleaned a sponge bubbler that been running for 2+ years! in a 5g plant tank. I had drift wood leaning on it when first set it up and Java moss that had overgrown onto the sponge. So made it hard to get it out without pulling out the plants.
