How often do u clean ur canisters?

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bongko

bongko

Gambusia
MFK Member
Feb 6, 2009
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16
Los Angeles
I have a 100g tank with 1 fx5, 2 fluval 405's, and two powerheads with small sponge things on the bottom. My tank has a datnoid community that range from 4-8" thinbars, 1' ornate, 8" flagtail, baby indos, ngt, and 3 silver dollars. Their main diet consists of massivores (i go through 1 medium sized bag every two weeks) and carnivore pellets in the morning and some pellets mixed with shrimp at night.
I usually do 2 wc's a week, roughly 30-40%, every Tues and Sat, and clean the canisters every 2-3 weeks. its a major pain to clean all the canisters, but everytime i clean them they have so much pellet crap in them it disgusts me and I feel i should clean them every week.
I know that the tank is a bit overstocked, but I have been selling a couple of the big thinbars so its not as bad as before. I'm just wondering if other people who have overstocked tanks clean out their canisters weekly or monthly or whatever.
 
i left my fx5 for 8 months before i cleaned it , i think once every 4 month should be about right but i would like to hear some other comments on this topic because i was wondering if i was right or not .
 
When I had my 150 overstocked after my 450 broke, I was cleaning my canister at least once a week. But, I also had that canister set-up for mechanical water polishing so the filter media was very fine. I ended up changing out that filter for a larger mesh cylinder and filled it with carbon. The water wasnt as crystal clear, but it was clean, and i didnt have to clean it as often.
 
CLean canisters once a month...........
 
Every 3 months or so. If you want an easy way to reduce canister cleaning: zip tie an aquaclear sponge to the intake of the canister. It will prevent a lot of the debris from entering the filter and you can just slide it off and rinse clean every water change.
 
PostalPenguin;4330886; said:
Every 3 months or so. If you want an easy way to reduce canister cleaning: zip tie an aquaclear sponge to the intake of the canister. It will prevent a lot of the debris from entering the filter and you can just slide it off and rinse clean every water change.
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i like that idea, but wont it limit the intake of the water and perhaps reduce the flow?
 
Never really understood how some can let their filtration go untouched for months at a time.
I have seen some who claim only cleaning 2 times a year, or letting the media get so clogged it actually slows the flow rate of the filter.
All that gunk trapped in the media with the tank water circulating through it.
I know many do just that and say they have no ill effects.
Not understanding how that can be.
My thinking is it would be like not running a vac for a few months.
Just let the gunk build up.
No difference if that gunk is hidden away in a can, might even be worse with the flow of water through it.
I cleaned my cans every 2 weeks and got a bunch of gunk out of the media each time.
 
flipstylex;4331951; said:
i have my fx5 running for 5 months now without touching it yet :). ill try to reach next month and probably clean it. as for my powerfilters, i clean them every month
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when you do clean it, is it brimming with fish crap? i guess it depends what you feed them, but my canisters have concentrated pellet poo and its pretty disgusting. anyways i guess i can relax on cleaning out the canisters. thnx for the input fellas
 
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