Fluval 105 External Filter

[adamgreen240]

hi i recently bought a Fluval 105 external filter -

its coming up for its first maintenace.

it has carbon - biomax and foam

which ones should i wash in tank water and with tap water

thanks
adam

 

[timmystood]

Best bet is to wash everything in old tank water.

 

[adamgreen240]

Best bet is to wash everything in old tank water.

ok its just in the manual it says to wasj it in the sink!

how odd

 

[Teelie]

Drop the carbon. It works at best for a week but more realistically is used up in days. Replace the carbon with some kind of foam or other bio media in old tank water like timmystood suggested. Tap water is probably going to have chlorine or chloramine which can harm your bacterial colonies and/or be too different a temperature and might harm them that way too. I'm not sure how sensitive bacteria are to extreme temperature differences so it might only be a minor concern.

 

[andywg]

I'd do the foam under the tap. The foam is purely for mechanical so doing it this way gets it cleaner and has less detritus breaking down and thus helps prevent excessive nitrate build up.

As above, I would swap out the carbon for some bio media.