cleaning xp3

I rinse the media out about every month or so. The prefilters catch 90% of the large particles, so they get cleaned every week.
I admit i haven't cleaned the impellar housing for months. Everythings running excellent.

I got 6 filstar's. I empty out the canister's about every other week. I clean the sponges about once every other month, and clean the tubing about once every 4 months. I clean the impellar about 2x per year. After 2 years, I still haven't cleaned the bio-media yet. I use the bio-stars. I probably will clean them soon because they are pretty dirty, I'm also going to going to add some ceramic rings to my bio-media.

To clean each sponge I squeeze it out well in a pitcher of aquarium water until it's clean. I have to empty and refill this pitcher of aquarium water alot during this process.

To clean the tubing I get a bucket of hot water and put a scoop of Oxyclean in it, and soak the tubing in that for about 5 minutes. Then to clean the inside of the tubing I use a test tube brush that I connected to a straightened out coat hanger. This works pretty good for me.

nice info there chefkeith, I just bought an xP3 and have yet to set it up.

The fish in your tanks swim between each tank through the pvc?

hey- yes, but of all my fish, only the clown loaches are smart enough to swim through the pvc pipes into the other tanks.

hehe - I just got a new XP3 for Xmas. I love it. I just ordered Bio-Chem Stars from Big Al's.
Also got a new Coralife freshwater aqualight, which brings my light up to 4 wpg. My plants are now actually pearling. First time that ever happened in my tank.
Christmas is good. Christmas is our friend.