How often do you all change everything inside. Or do you at all? How do you maintain? I have the 06 series. All I have done is rinse out the foam and media. I haven't changed anything. What do you all do?
You will gets lots opinions on frequency. One thing that can affect how often is the amount of fish, if you are overfeeding, and if you are using fine filter floss. I personally open mine up every 4-6 months. More if I'm trying to polish my water with filter floss.
When it comes to cleaning make sure you use tank water, chlorine and chlorimines will kill your nitrifying bacteria. If you haven't yet toss out the carbon. We typically only use that after treating the tank with some sort of meds. Carbon sucks up everything.
It is indiscriminate. It will sucks up stuff we don't want ammonia etc. It also sucks up stuff we do want like ferts. It also exhausts really quick, meaning it will no longer work as intended. Your better off using the sauce it takes up with Purigen, more bio media or filter floss/pads.
You could go with just mechanical and bio media if you want. Using purigin will really polish your water but needs frequent change outs. This all depends on how much you are willing to mess with it. Use your flow as an indicator. When flow starts to diminish then rinse your filter with tank water.
I have canisters and honestly do not maintain them as much as I should. Probably only deal with them 2-3 times a year at most.
some general rules around canister maintenance:
Don't bother with carbon in a planted tank. like others have said it will suck up nutrients you may be dosing which makes no sense. also it will get 'used up' pretty quickly then you'll have to waste $ replacing it.
Don't waste your money on replacing things. Fluval wants you to do this but you're better than that. You can just rinse your bio media and rinse out your sponges (in tank water). The only thing I 'change' each time I clean my filters is the filter floss and I just use 100% polyester quilt batting from wal mart that costs like $5 for a huge bag (definitely get in on that).
Don't rinse stuff in tap water directly. I personally rinse my sponges under the tub faucet (which is a no-no but I am lazy) but the majority of my bio media (eheim substrat pro) I ONLY rinse in tank water. Some people say chlorinated tap water can do a number on your beneficial bacteria. you want to clean things out, NOT kill your existing bacteria colony
STOCK YOUR FILTER PROPERLY. You should ALWAYS stock your filter from coarse to fine to bio media. I know that EHEIM and probably other filter manufacturers recommend you put the filter floss AFTER the bio media. This is a load of crap coming from the same people who want you to replace your clogged media every month. You want the water to be as clean as possible going into your bio media so it does not clog. The water should go through: foam(coarse to fine), filter floss, then finally your bio media
I've run several fluvals, and only change out media as needed. I'll keep rinsing and reusing the coarse filter foam until it no longer will spring back to shape (over 3 years in my 106 on a 10 gallon).
I do run the fluval polishing pads, but just rinse them out during cleanings. As for the bio media, I've never replaced it, just rinsed and shook in old tank water.
My recommendation is to place some extra filter foam in the bottom basket of the stack for backup to the main coarse filter.
As has been said, don't run the carbon with plants. It will strip trace nutrients from the water (which the plants need), as well as absorbing nitrates (which the plants also need).
Personnaly, I've run carbon one time, and that was after a medication cycle to remove any residual meds after a 50%pwc.
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