Cleaning Filters

[KamSandhu44]

Howdy all,

A question for everyone...

How often do you clean your filters? And how?

 

[Gvilleguy]

Hi Kam - welcome to the forum!

What kind of filter do you have, and what kind of media resides in it? This will determine specifics in cleaning. But, in general, you will probably find that once every month or two, you should clean your filter. Or if you notice that the flow of water has slowed down. This involves using a bucket of tank water that has been siphoned out of your tank. This is VERY important. If you clean your filter in tap water that has not been dechlorinated, you can kill off the helpful bacteria that lives in your filter media.

So, carefully remove your media from the filter, and give it a gentle rinse in the bucket. You mainly want to remove visible gunk that has lodged there. You do NOT want to scrub your media to make them look clean. Just rinse. For a sponge just give it a gentle squeeze. If you have ceramic pellets - just rinse them in the bucket without dumping them out, if possible (like if they are in a media basket in a canister filter).

 

[fluttermoth]

It all depends on what kind of filter you have and how heavily stocked the tanks is!

The large external that runs on my tetra tank gets done only every couple of months; the external running on my oscar's tank needs doing monthly; the smaller internal in a heavily stocked three foot tank gets done weekly.

You have to get a balance between not interfering with it too much so you disturb your bacterial colonies and doing it so infrequently that it get's clogged with mulm and stops working properly.

The most important thing is not to ever let any raw, chlorinated tap water anywhere near the filter media. Use old tank water only and don't over clean and you shouldn't have any problems.

 

[snazy]

Depends on the bioload of the particular tank really. Some of them need washing often, some of them rarely. You should normally be able to notice it. The tank either gets dirtier than normal or the water flow gets lower. Also, if the tank is not well established, you can cause a minicycle rinsing the filter too early so I normally wait a while after the tank is cycled and all is going well and always test the water after the first time just in case.

 

[Gvilleguy]

Definitely agree on not cleaning during a cycle. And also only clean when strictly necessary when the tank is still young. My mini-cycles didn't really stop until the tank was about 12 months old. Good comments, snazy.

 

[KamSandhu44]

Wow, thanks for the great replies.

I have a Juwel Rio 180 with the Bioflow 3.0 filter. I am currently in the process of cycling the tank.