Filter cleaning

[its_kay_10]

How exactly do you clean your filter? I don't think Im doing it right. The water doesn't seem to be flowing fast enough through the cartridge. Would I need to actually change the cartridge? What do I need to keep to keep the bacteria?


Sorry if it's a dumb question, before you guys I would have just changed the entire thing.

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[its_kay_10]

I have the tetra whisper which came with the tank. If that helps at all

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[brennae]

Ok so when you siphon water out of the tank you save a bucket of it and take the cartridge out of the filter and swish in the bucket of water til the gunk is off. Clean the intake also in this fashion as that gets mucked up as well. If you didn't save any water then fill a bucket with tap water and dechlorinator such as Prime and follow the above instructions.

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[its_kay_10]

Ok so when you siphon water out of the tank you save a bucket of it and take the cartridge out of the filter and swish in the bucket of water til the gunk is off. Clean the intake also in this fashion as that gets mucked up as well. If you didn't save any water then fill a bucket with tap water and dechlorinator such as Prime and follow the above instructions.

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So take the entire filter off to clean the intake since its the immersible one? (I feel stupid asking)

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[brennae]

Oh I thought you had the hang on the back kind. Would you mind posting a pic so I'm clear as to which filter or a model name or number so I can Google it?

Don't feel stupid. One of my first posts to this forum a few years ago was how to assemble a sponge filter that I ordered from China. No pics on the box and I don't read Chinese. You would think that would be self explanatory but I had never seen one in use before.

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[its_kay_10]

Oh I thought you had the hang on the back kind. Would you mind posting a pic so I'm clear as to which filter or a model name or number so I can Google it?

Don't feel stupid. One of my first posts to this forum a few years ago was how to assemble a sponge filter that I ordered from China. No pics on the box and I don't read Chinese. You would think that would be self explanatory but I had never seen one in use before.

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The filter is the tetra whisper 2-10i. I don't know if you can see it well enough. The water is starting to come up from the back. It has the cartridge and a little foam piece too.

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[its_kay_10]

It might be a hang on the back kind, but I thought it said immersible. It's almost all in water

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[brennae]

Ok sorry for the delay in writing a novel of another post. What I would do is remove the cartridge and clean in the same way I told you. I would also take the whole filter and dump whatever water is in it into a bucket or something. A lot of times the bottoms of those filter fill up with muck. You could rinse the inside of the filter with your dirty tank water if you like and pick out any snails that got in there and then put it back in your tank, pop the cartridge back in and you are done.

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[brennae]

It might be a hang on the back kind, but I thought it said immersible. It's almost all in water

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It is supposed to go inside the tank. The slots at the bottom are the intake and then the water is pumped up and out the top. During this process it goes through the filter media to clean the debris and yuck out of the water.

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[its_kay_10]

Ok sorry for the delay in writing a novel of another post. What I would do is remove the cartridge and clean in the same way I told you. I would also take the whole filter and dump whatever water is in it into a bucket or something. A lot of times the bottoms of those filter fill up with muck. You could rinse the inside of the filter with your dirty tank water if you like and pick out any snails that got in there and then put it back in your tank, pop the cartridge back in and you are done.

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That's okay lol, I was getting my daughter ready for bed (it's "her" tank) and thank you, no snails I had a tank a few years back that got over run with snails. I didn't know half as much then as I do now. Thanks so much for your help.

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[brennae]

No problem. I had that same filter at one time. It came with a kit for a nano tank. I don't know what kind of fish you have but always check inside the filter for fry and snails. Snails can mess up your filter functioning especially if it's a filter with an impeller and you never know when fry are going to get sucked up in there.
Also only use dirty tank water or dechlorinated water or you could kill all the beneficial bacteria that is clinging to the filter media and insides of the filter etc.
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[its_kay_10]

No problem. I had that same filter at one time. It came with a kit for a nano tank. I don't know what kind of fish you have but always check inside the filter for fry and snails. Snails can mess up your filter functioning especially if it's a filter with an impeller and you never know when fry are going to get sucked up in there.
Also only use dirty tank water or dechlorinated water or you could kill all the beneficial bacteria that is clinging to the filter media and insides of the filter etc.
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We have 4 glofish Danios. And I'll do that Friday when my daughter goes back to school.

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[brennae]

Ah yes well you could get fry then. Just don't try to sell them as its illegal due to some copyright or patent or something on the fish! Lol

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[its_kay_10]

Ah yes well you could get fry then. Just don't try to sell them as its illegal due to some copyright or patent or something on the fish! Lol

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Yeah it's copyright. Lame. It's a fish haha.

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