School me on cleaning a filter

A

Audrey711

AC Members
Apr 17, 2010
18
0
0
Michigan
Hey guys,
I've got a 20 gallon tank that I inherited about a year ago. I thought I had everything going well but I noticed the water hasn't been flowing very strong down from the filter and the leaves of my plants are starting to get dirty. It's a Tetra Whisper EX 20, it's got two separate parts to it. One that has a bunch of plastic white circles on it, and then the other looks like the normal filter. The filter is completely green. I've listed my stock list below, I don't think my fish are very dirty. I tried to look up some ways to clean it by searching, it sounds like I can rinse it under the tap water...and shouldn't replace it. What do you think?

4 Zebra Danios
3 Corys
1 Guppy
4 Amano Shrimp
 
are you saying that in close to a years time, you've never cleaned the filter?
I'm not sure what the " bunch of plastic white circles" are.
Is your filter colored green, or turned green from fish waste?
You need to figure out where your bacteria colony is suppose to be in the filter. Never clean this part with tap water; it will kill your beneficial bacteria. Always rinse this part in tank water. Hopefully someone else who is familiar with the type of filter you have can help you more.
 
There's a review of the ex20 at http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=182581 so I'll use that for reference.

If you're using buckets for water changes or have an aquarium-safe one, then when you do your next water change, simply swish the plastic part with the circles in order to rinse away any debris. This doesn't need to be scrubbed very hard.

Then take the pad out of the holder and rub it with your hands in the water until most of the gunk is out of it. Then put the pad back in the holder.

Next, remove the intake tube and take out the impellar (that's the little thing in the pictures that looks like a star). Clean it off gently, usually I use a tissue or a q-tip for this. Also, clean out the spot that the impellar sits in, that way it will have the least amount of resistance. I use a q-tip for this too.

Then reassemble everything and put it back in the tank. Remember that you shouldn't need to scrub too hard to clean everything out and it shouldn't and won't look like new when you're done. Additionally, don't let the pad of the plastic screen dry out since this is where most of your bacteria live.

I generally clean my low-load filters once per month while my high volume filters get cleaned twice per month.
 
Thanks for the help. When I got the tank (we moved into a house where the family member had passed away) you couldn't even look into the tank it was so dirty, fish were dying left and right. We bought a new filter and cleaned all of the items in the tank saving a few fish. Rookie mistake putting in a new filter. After that I guess I didn't think it was something I needed to maintain that often. While I've purchased testing kits and feel like I've got everything else into place, I then realized I wasn't checking the filter.

I will get to work cleaning it. Do you ever actually replace it?
 
when it starts to fall apart, then you will need to replace it. But that usually takes a long time. There are also other helpful threads on here about different materials you can use as filter material. You can do a search or ask. :-)
 
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