How often do you clean your canister filter?

[giar]

i just cleaned up my 3 canisters (2 fx6 + 1 eheim 2260) yesterday, and this afternoon i found out my nitrate is finally go below 40ppm!!! I had been having high nitrate problems these couple months and i think i finally found out the root of the problem.

It took me like 2-3 hours to do all the cleanings, it was really tiring but very rewarding at the end.

Last time i did maintenance for the canisters was like 3-4 months ago.

So whats ur canister maintenance schedule looks like?

And how do you clean it efficiently and effectively?

 

[giar]

I found a couple ghost shrimps were living inside the fx6.. duno how did they survive lol

 

[duanes]

When I first tried canisters 30 years ago, I did the same thing, let them go for long periods of time, but realized nitrate would always climb to what I consider stressful and dangerous concentrations (anything above 20ppm).
In order to keep nitrates below 20ppm, I found I had to clean them weekly, which made canister parts wear and fail quickly, and the process was to say the least, user "unfriendly".
Needless to say I stopped using them, went to sumps, and back to simple HOBs.
I have never been happier with the results.

 

[giar]

I dont know why it took me so long..

I cleaned the canister one by one..

Rinsed the sponge with tank water

Put the bio media inside container filled with tank water

The sponge rinsing was a pain, too much gunks attached to it.

And i hate priming eheim 2260

 

[fishnatics]

I clean mine every month and yes they are nasty.

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

You should probably do them at least once a month, but maybe even more often if you have heavy stocking. You could just do one a week and rotate them every three weeks.

 

[giar]

Would that be ok to clean one of the canisters once a week and with water change?

 

[Jez1992]

It's best do do one a week or so. As each time you clean them, you can knock off some of the bacteria, so doing them one a time saves the risk of a mini cycle.

Is unlikely if rinsing in tank water, although if they're really dirty and being scrubbed clean, naturally some of the good stuff will come off too as well as the bad stuff lol

 

[pops]

every 3 months here, HoB every other week,

 

[DeathStalker]

Ok, I don't feel so bad now. I have to do my FX6 about once a month, sometimes I can push it an extra week or two. It's the sponges that get clogged the most. Takes 5-10mins to fully rinse out each of the 6 sponges. They get caked with sludge, then it's rinsing off the rest of the parts. I only leave my bioballs untouched (they're the porous ceramic ones, not the plastic ones). And I change out the large ChemiPure Elite bag about every 9 months (not sure if I should do it more often or not, as it's only a 90gal tank). I haven't had any shrimp in my filters, but I have tons of snails in them! I also have an intank SunSun JP-025F that I have to clean about every week (I know it needs cleaning when it no longer aerates, lol!)