How Often Do You Clean Your External Canister Filter

1. How stocked is your tank?
2. and with what types of fish?
3. do you have a prefilter on the intake?
4. what type of media is in the canister?
5. is your tank heavily planted?

1. If your tank is at limit or over limit it can make canister cleaning a monthly requirement. Can depending on the type of fish which brings me to:
2. The types of fish/inhabitants can affect the amount of waste produced in the tank. That waste could be biological waste (i.e. poop) or waste like plant/wood matter in the tank. Some fish that have larger bio-loads mean more frequent filter cleanings (i.e. goldfish, wood rasping plecos, oscars, mystery snails). If you have a tank full of tetras you could get away with cleaning a canister every three month...maybe more. If you have the same tank with the addition of say a BN pleco and some panaques then you are looking at monthly canister cleaning, maybe two months if you want to risk it.
3. Prefilters (basically a sponge covering the intake-or in the intake for the big Fluval intakes) on the intake will keep out a lot of the larger debris out of the canister keeping the media cleaner longer. This means you will have to clean the intake possibly weekly otherwise it will impede the flow of water into the filter.
4. The media in your canister will effect the frequency of cleaning as well. A canister heavy with sponge media (IME) tends to fill with mulmy gunk (technical term for the brown slime that builds up in filters) and impede flow within the filter. Adding more biological media like the ceramic rings/balls can help decrease the buildup and allow for more time between cleanings.
5. Dying plant matter, or destructive fish that damage plants can increase the plant waste in the tank, this will get into the filter and mean that the filter needs to be cleaned more often than a plant free tank. Would this mean I would get rid of my plants...no way, but it is a contributing factor in deciding how often to clean the filter.

Boundava said:

Cleaning canister filters depends on a couple things.

1. How stocked is your tank?
2. and with what types of fish?
3. do you have a prefilter on the intake?
4. what type of media is in the canister?
5. is your tank heavily planted?

How does this effect the cleaning times...

1. If your tank is at limit or over limit it can make canister cleaning a monthly requirement. Can depending on the type of fish which brings me to:
2. The types of fish/inhabitants can affect the amount of waste produced in the tank. That waste could be biological waste (i.e. poop) or waste like plant/wood matter in the tank. Some fish that have larger bio-loads mean more frequent filter cleanings (i.e. goldfish, wood rasping plecos, oscars, mystery snails). If you have a tank full of tetras you could get away with cleaning a canister every three month...maybe more. If you have the same tank with the addition of say a BN pleco and some panaques then you are looking at monthly canister cleaning, maybe two months if you want to risk it.
3. Prefilters (basically a sponge covering the intake-or in the intake for the big Fluval intakes) on the intake will keep out a lot of the larger debris out of the canister keeping the media cleaner longer. This means you will have to clean the intake possibly weekly otherwise it will impede the flow of water into the filter.
4. The media in your canister will effect the frequency of cleaning as well. A canister heavy with sponge media (IME) tends to fill with mulmy gunk (technical term for the brown slime that builds up in filters) and impede flow within the filter. Adding more biological media like the ceramic rings/balls can help decrease the buildup and allow for more time between cleanings.
5. Dying plant matter, or destructive fish that damage plants can increase the plant waste in the tank, this will get into the filter and mean that the filter needs to be cleaned more often than a plant free tank. Would this mean I would get rid of my plants...no way, but it is a contributing factor in deciding how often to clean the filter.

So you can see why there isn't going to be a straight answer to how often to clean the canister filter. You can go based on the flow rate, how fast is the water being filtered through as a judge on when to clean, but I have three FX4s and the spray nozzles are about 4 inches under the surface so seeing the flow is a bit hard vs say the Eheim classic series spaybars that are often at the surface of the waterline.

When cleaning the media you always want to use either tank water, or tap water treated with a dechlorinator like Prime or Safe. I will rinse media in a bucket. If it is a sponge I am cleaning I will swish it around and lightly wring it out to remove the majority of the water then bang the sponge in a sink (laundry tub) to get the debris out of the sponge. This will be messy and over time you will see less gunk coming out of the sponge. Repeating this until the visible buildup is gone. Will the sponge look like new-NO, and you don't want/need it to. When it comes to bacterial media like ceramic rings/balls/lavarock/pumice, you just swish it in the water to rinse any debris off. I don't do anything to the inside of the canister, other than to rinse it out at the end with some of the water I used to clean the media. This shouldn't damage the bacterial levels to the extent where you will loose your cycle.

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Colin_T said:

All filters should be cleaned at least once a month. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it.

Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter regularly means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

The beneficial filter bacteria will not be killed if you wash the filter media in a bucket of tank water.

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You want to do a bigger water change each week. Changing 10% means you leave 90% of the bad stuff in the water. You are better off doing a bigger water change (50-75%) to help reduce nutrients and disease organisms in the water.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

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Colin_T said:

Dirty water inside the filter gets tipped on the lawn too.
The filter case and motor gets washed under tap water.

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