Replacing/Cleaning Marineland cartridges

[Travis32]

I have a couple questions. I have a Marineland Emperor 400 and a Marineland Penguin 350 filter system on my 75 gallon tank. My questions are regarding cleaning and replacing the cartridges (the things with the blue fabric on one side)
1) When cleaning them, I pull them out and wash them in a bucket that is filled with water from the aquarium, is this correct?
2) How do I know that it is actually time to change them?
3) When I change them, since there is 4 of them, how should I change them? One at a time? Two at a time? Or all four?
4) If one or two at a time, how long should I wait before changing the rest?
Thanks everyone!!!

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[Leeatl]

Rinsing in tank water is fine.The carbon only lasts about a month.I wouldn't change more than half of them at one time.I have a couple of these filters and I found a refillable plastic frames from Big Al's pets I think.I use cut to fit pads and bio media...Matrix..on them.Also put prefilter sponges on the intakes.Makes any cartridge last a long time.
Here are one of the refillables....
Marineland Refillable Media Container for Penguin 200B/350B

 

[calfishguy]

Personally I never change my cartridges or foam until they are literally falling apart. Changing them simply destroys your beneficial bacteria that mainly live in the filters. As for the carbon I don't use any in my tanks since I don't feel it's necessary but in general it should be changed every 4 weeks minimum. If you go longer it can actually start to Keach the toxins it removed back into the water.

 

[PassengerTN]

I have a couple questions. I have a Marineland Emperor 400 and a Marineland Penguin 350 filter system on my 75 gallon tank. My questions are regarding cleaning and replacing the cartridges (the things with the blue fabric on one side)
1) When cleaning them, I pull them out and wash them in a bucket that is filled with water from the aquarium, is this correct?
2) How do I know that it is actually time to change them?
3) When I change them, since there is 4 of them, how should I change them? One at a time? Two at a time? Or all four?
4) If one or two at a time, how long should I wait before changing the rest?
Thanks everyone!!!

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1) Yes
2) When they're falling apart
3) When I do change mine, I'll do one per side
4) See answer 2. If they fall apart around the same time, I try to wait around 4 weeks.

I only run 2 of the filter pads in my Marinelands, I stuff the rest of the space with polyfil for some great water polishing mechanical filtering.


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