Weekly Filter Maintenance too much?

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Danny.

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Oct 6, 2010
Messages
57
Location
Sheffield
I was wondering if cleaning my filter during the weekly water change is too much?
Every week when i change 60l from my 240l tank i turn off the filter, wash the foam pads in the siphoned water, give the ammonia bags and activated carbon bags a wash in the water too.
I was wondering if this is a bad idea.. including cleaning my carbon media... will it damage my bacteria supplies?
Alot of waste seems to accumilate in the foam pads and the bags seem to eject alot of dirt when rinsed.
Thanks
 
I do weekly cleaning on our filters and have had no adverse effects from it. As long as you're using the tank water and not tap water, you'll be fine.
 
I clean my HOB's weekly. Like Jamie said, as long as you're using dechlorinated water, you'll be fine. I wouldn't waste money on carbon though. It only works for a week or two and really isnt going to do anything for you unless you're trying to remove meds
 
if it was not cleaned so often, would it make a difference. Say if it was done every other week instead of weekly? just asking because if it made no difference or just a tiny difference, it would seem like a waste of time. Not like you can keep me from sticking my hands in my tank every day anyway lol.
 
One way to find out...

For me, the time to deal with the filter, if I have not done so already, is when I notice the flow looks a little lower, so I take a look and see if there is junk on the intake prefilter, and if not I pull the basket on my Aquaclears and see if there is some stuff gumming up the works somewhere. I have heavily stocked, heavily planted, heavily filtered tanks, so they are always producing lots of gunk. Sometimes its plant debris, sometimes a stupid snail, sometimes just accumulated debris.

If you can let the filter go for another week without cleaning, and your flow is not perceptibly lower I think that it is probably better because you are not disrupting the biofilter complex. Not a big deal, but if you don't need to do it don't. Experiment.

if it was not cleaned so often, would it make a difference. Say if it was done every other week instead of weekly? just asking because if it made no difference or just a tiny difference, it would seem like a waste of time. Not like you can keep me from sticking my hands in my tank every day anyway lol.
 
In my opinion, it would really depends on a few things:

How stocked the tank is

What type of fish

What types of foods you feed

What kind of filter


Each of our tanks has different stocking (amounts of fish), different fish, different foods, different filters.

I can go to every other week or even once a month depending on which tank and sometimes that's exactly what I do.

But for 3 of our tanks the filters need the once a week cleaning.

Our 80g BW tank we do once a week because I know the filter has trouble keeping up with the tank. It's a Fluval 404 canister, rated for 100g but we all know ratings are a bit questionable. We have about 2 dozen mollies, just under 2 dozen bumblebee gobys, about 2 dozen ghost shrimp, 5 indian glass fish and 2 dragon gobys. Various snails too. I can tell mid-way through the week that the filter is starting to get clogged just by the water, so it's cleaned weekly.

Some what the same for our 2 cichlid tanks. Messy fish, so I clean more often.

Hope this makes sense.
 
Biologically, a clean filter will work better. The reason for this is that the nitrifying bacteria do not consume solid materials. This job is performed by heterothropic bacteria which are also aerobic bacteria, and compete with available oxygen in the filter. The combination of solid and heterotrophic bacteria reduce the ability of the nitrifying bacteria to do their job.
In this case, I would get rid of the carbon and ammonia bags. Neither are necessary or even desirable. They can be replaced with more bio media, which can be more sponges, pot scrubbers or whatever.
A clogged filter may be better at removing particles from the water than a clean one.
 
The only part of the filter I clean is the impeller and the siphon tube. I don't touch the rest. About two weeks ago, I changed the filter bag (I kept the old plastic frame) because I was gonna cycle the 55 gallon tank. That bag was over a year old.
 
For me, the time to deal with the filter, if I have not done so already, is when I notice the flow looks a little lower, so I take a look and see if there is junk on the intake prefilter, and if not I pull the basket on my Aquaclears and see if there is some stuff gumming up the works somewhere. I have heavily stocked, heavily planted, heavily filtered tanks, so they are always producing lots of gunk. Sometimes its plant debris, sometimes a stupid snail, sometimes just accumulated debris.

If you can let the filter go for another week without cleaning, and your flow is not perceptibly lower I think that it is probably better because you are not disrupting the biofilter complex. Not a big deal, but if you don't need to do it don't. Experiment.

Same here. I clean every 4 weeks usually, but if I notice a significant decrease in flow I clean the media in a bucket. I don't think cleaning it once a week, so long as it is done in current tank water, is going to hurt you.
 
As long as it's just swishing it in tank water for a few seconds, then no problem, anything more than that is too much. And as long as it's cleaning and not replacing, most filter components don't need replacing. The only thing in my filter that does need regular replacement is the floss pad which doesn't do anything biologically just traps very fine particles and because of this needs regular replacement as it gets bunged up.
 
As long as it's just swishing it in tank water for a few seconds, then no problem, anything more than that is too much. And as long as it's cleaning and not replacing, most filter components don't need replacing. The only thing in my filter that does need regular replacement is the floss pad which doesn't do anything biologically just traps very fine particles and because of this needs regular replacement as it gets bunged up.

Can't you just swirl that around in the bucket too? My Rena XP had a floss pad and I'd just swirl that around and then throw some fresh filter floss (cotton ball type stuff) on top of it. I do admit though that it actually thinned out over time, and maybe could have used a replacing. Wouldn't have hurt anyway since I had tons of bio media and three course mechanical pads in the bottom bin.
 
The only part of the filter I clean is the impeller and the siphon tube. I don't touch the rest. About two weeks ago, I changed the filter bag (I kept the old plastic frame) because I was gonna cycle the 55 gallon tank. That bag was over a year old.

hmmm... that doesn't sound right to me... you NEVER cleaned the filter for a year? just the impeller and siphon tube? nitrate factory much?
 
As long as it's just swishing it in tank water for a few seconds, then no problem, anything more than that is too much. And as long as it's cleaning and not replacing, most filter components don't need replacing. The only thing in my filter that does need regular replacement is the floss pad which doesn't do anything biologically just traps very fine particles and because of this needs regular replacement as it gets bunged up.
Some of this is untrue. Filter elements can take more than a little swishing, and should in fact be quite clean when you are done. Sponge elements need vigorous squeezing to get all the solid crud out of them. In tank water of course. The bacteria is solidly glued to the substrate material and not easily dislodged. Filter floss will become a bed for nitrifying bacteria if left long enough.
bottom line here is that whatever is in the filter, whether you can see it or not, must be considered to be still in the tank. So, if you saw all that crud lying on the bottom of your tank would you leave it? That is what you are doing if you don't clean your filter elements adequately.
 
Exactly, Bill. In fact, as I've posted elsewhere, the filter is where the majority of crud builds up in an aquarium. Cleaning your filter is like flushing their toilet.
 
What I meant when I said swirl is that I do squeeze vigorously until the water is dark brown. As stated above, I felt it necessary to do it every 3-4 weeks, as that is when I noticed my flow decreasing or my water getting a tad murky.

I agree with Bill.
 
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