Canister advice

[FlopNewsom]

I bought a canister to put media in. It has 4 trays. The top one has a sponge in it and all four have a filter media in the bottom. What is the best way to set this up so that it is not the "nitrate" factory I hear about?

 

[Animal-Chin]

To make sure its not the "factory" you have to clean out the decaying matter that enters it. Food, algae and poo get sucked in and trapped in a dark canister where they start to decay and nitrify. I have a fluval 305 with sponge, chemipure elite and carbon. I clean it out thoroughly about every 10 days. Its a good practice to do it with waterchanges can you dump the dirty water and fill it with fresh before hooking it back up...

 

[Phranque]

+1. Just by it's very nature of trapping old food, detritus, etc, canisters are nitrate factories unless cleaned out very often. This is where the benefit of a protein skimmer comes in. The canister traps material, but allows it to rot within the water column, converting to nitrates.... whereas a skimmer removes & isolates "gunk" away from the water column.

 

[bavass]

Yep +1 on the cleaning often. I used to clean mine out every 7 days and finally got tired of it and bought 2 reactors one for GFO and one for GAC. Canister filter is in the shed

 

[EriksFish315]

Sorry to hijack but for my 55 gallon reef without sump I run a eheim canister and a reef octopus hob skimmer. Would I just remove the canister since it really does not serve a purpose other then creating more work for me and not benefiting my tank other than causing nitrates?

 

[jeffaquarius]

You need to have something to remove solid stuff circulating the water. Your option is to get a hanging filter which is easier to maintain.

 

[Gfive131]

I also have a Fluval 305 canister filter and its been doing a good job for me so far. Like the other comments mention you do have to clean it at lease every other week.

 

[bavass]

The skimmer should be removing everything the canister filter does if its a good quality skimmer, is functioning properly

 

[FlopNewsom]

Any advice on what to use for media?