Canister maintenance?

Dunluce2

Dunluce2

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Sep 12, 2005
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Wagga Wagga, Australia
Hi peoples.Your probably sick to death with me. I have a ugf. I have added a external canister filter to it and cycling it in tandom with the ugf. For about a month now. The instructions on the canister filter said how to set it up/put it together but no instructions on how often to change the carbon and what the maintainance routine should be.do you just clean the sponges or do you wash the bioceramic thingys too when you do a water change?. I dont want to kill the bacteria that provide the biofiltration. I always used to mess that up with the ugf till i understood how it worked.

Also i got i very large canister filter so i can upsize to a quite larger tank. When I'm ready if i use the existing gravel to seed the new substrate and swap the canisteer filter straight over, will there be a considerable cycle time. or as the canister is already cycled can i transfer my exisitng fish straight over. I am assuming it would be the same bio load. So if i add any new fish slowly after a few weeks than it should be pretty stable???

Any advice.

Dunluce
 
If you switch the filter to a new aquarium its instantly cycled because your bacteria *mostly* lives in the canister media. Some lives in teh gravel but the majority of it is in the filter so it would be all set to handle the new tank.

I have a new canister and I have no idea about when to clean it, except I don't think your supposed to mess with it much.
 
Yep thats what i thought. anyone with info on when and how to clean canister filters please respond. And by the way, i know this is a fish site but that is the coolest bloody cat I've ever seen. You are the envy of my household. We are cat lovers too but unfortunately my son is allergic to pretty much most animals and thats why we love fish.

Thanks Dunluce
 
Well it all depends on how many fish you have whats in the can what kind it is ect please elaborate.
 
Dunluce2 said:
Yep thats what i thought. anyone with info on when and how to clean canister filters please respond. And by the way, i know this is a fish site but that is the coolest bloody cat I've ever seen. You are the envy of my household. We are cat lovers too but unfortunately my son is allergic to pretty much most animals and thats why we love fish.

Thanks Dunluce
Click to expand...
Thanks! Some people with cat allergies do fine with bengals because they are pelted giving making their coats and skin different than most cats (their coats feel almost minkish). I know this is the case with my previous roommate. Horribly allergic to cats, but not Meeka. However, its really person to person when it comes to how bad the allergy is and what can be tolerated. Sphynx, Rex, and Turkish Van's are also known to be good for people with allergy problems.

I can't help with the maintenance as I'm still learning and have already made a ton of mistakes with my canister.
 
I clean my canisters once a month and my HOB every 2 weeks. Pretty much I open it up and do a good job cleaning the mechanical media and rinsing out the sponges. I check up on the chemical media (Purigen) and put the biological media to the side so that I don't mess with it. I then clean the impeller assembly and the rest of the filter, put it back together and have my fun getting the darn thing started again.
 
so by bio media you mean the cermic tube pieces? Mechanical filter is the sponges fine and coarse and the chemical is the charcoal satchels?
Generally i just rinsed everything. not so much tube pieces as they are the media for the bacteria arent they.

i have noticed since ive started it that there is a opaque clearish goo building up in the tube back to the tank outlet. I thought it was snail eggs but the pressure is alot and the entry holes are too smal for adult snails. i doubled the holes to break up the pressure a bit to as my canister is a little oversized for my tank. I wonder what it is and if its detrimental.

Dunluce

Ps the specialist said my son is allergic to proteins exuded by animals and its that not the fur that causes his allergies. Allas as we had planned on a cornish rex. Their short coat is sublime.
 
On my Filstar cannisters I do not use anthing besides the mechanical sponge filters and ceramic pieces (tubes, half hexes, whatever was made by a trusted name and cheapest). Once a month I clean them (I have a pre-filter over the intake otherwise pleco poop and my now large cichlids would block it up tighter than I can imagine)

1.by taking the last bucket of tank water from a change, putting a little in the sink
2. placing the buckets filled with ceramic in the bucket with the rest of the water
3. put the coarse and medium sponges in the sink with the tank water and press them, wring them, etc to clean anything out but hopefully save a little bateria
4. The fine filter does get doused with the faucet since I cannot get it clean enough otherwise, but place back into tank water afterwards
5. I shake the ceramic baskets in the tank water left in the bucket to dislodge any large particles in there (it happens)
6. Put everything back together, and I use my aged water to refill the canister

I avoid carbon just beacuse when it "fills up" it can release a lot of stored up junk. (I've heard) I did try some of the de-nitrate-ifying packets from Filstar for about a month, but didn't notice any help (maybe only for nitrites?)

I do almost the exact same thing for my Aqua Clear as I only have foam in it, my Emperor 400 needs the filter rinsed out in tank water every time I change water since I do not prefilter it any more than the original intake strainer. But I also don't like the Emp 400 (must have gotten a bad one 'cause everybody else seesm to like 'em) so I am no so patiently waiting for it to die to try something else
 
The bio-media is the ceramic things you are talking about. Carbon will not leach any of its material into the water unless you are at a pH extreme (above 12 or below 2) and a temperature extreme such as above 2000 *F if both these conditions are not met the carbon won't release the junk stored in it. I doubt anybody keeps their aquarium at these conditions so the carbon is not to worry. The white film you are talking about is biofilm. Basicly the bacteria secrete a mucus to help them stick to whatever surface they choose to inhabit and it allow allows more bacteria to stick to that secreted film. This is one of the reasons why cleaning the filter is important since this biofilm will just get thicker and thicker.
 
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