I just cleaned my fx5 last night and notice it was still clean... O.O i didnt see any brown waste inside the sponges or the bio balls... IS this bad... i have one 19inch aro inside the tank which is really dirty with poo every place... dont i still get clean reading... should i replace my bio balls out of the filter?
Sounds odd whats the entirety of your filtration stocking and tank size? When you lower the water level is the FX5 still a water cannon ? I know my 405 really chucks some water so double that would be a ton of water coming out of the outlet.
I just saw that ok so one jardini in a 240 with an FX5 I would expect about 6-8 months run time on that filter very little stock and a big tank with a big filter = long service life and most poo wont find the intake as the tank is so large. Powerheads might help flow and take care of gravel cleanliness.
if your not sucking tons of waste into the canister you wont see tons of "icky stuff" when you clean it out... this means you have to do more of the work yourself (vacuuming) but its not really all that hard once you figure out what works and what does not...
no do not replace the bioballs or any of the other media unless it is falling apart... if/when it gets dirty/restricts water flow simply wash it out in a bucket of tank water...
should i replace my bio balls out of the filter?
