Eheim Classic 2213 Media

[slakey]

Okay my tank has been running for around 6 months now, so does the media need to be washed or replaced?

If replaced how much do I need to replace, how do I go about doing it etc, I'm new to external filters.

 

[Miles_hot]

I think (being a newby I suspect someone more experienced will be along soon):
* the bio material in your filter should not be replaced - wash it tank water (taken out of the tank of course). The Bio material maybe a sponge or ceramic noodles etc. The ceramic stuff hardly needs to be replaced, the sponges may need to be replaced after a good long time. When you do put the new ones in with the old and slowly replace no more than a third at a time otherwise you'll loose too many of the bacteria and have problems.
* if you have pre-filter pads to capture the large solids these can be washed out a number of times (tank water again) before they have to be replaced - these will not contain as much bio load so can be done as a single operation
* if you have black carbon pads in the filter these are basically just fine filters now - the carbon element goes off in a few days and is only used for removing meds from the water. Note that as they are fine there will be some bio load in there so take this into account when replacing.
* Not sure what happens with the floss type material for polishing the water....
* I'm not sure how often filter maintenance needs to be done but I suspect more than twice a year

HTH

Miles

 

[slakey]

Thanks, I shall get that done on my next day off.

 

[OldMan47]

You have had good advice from Miles hot. What you do with any media is simply wash it in used tank water during a regular water change. You keep right on re-using it until it starts to fall apart and then try to replace no more than 1/3 at a time.

 

[slakey]

Nevermind, just cleaned the filter media out with tank water, connected it all up and switched it on, it's a lot more louder then before and there seems to be trapped air in the spray bar, oh joy

 

[OldMan47]

If you have a noisy spray bar or an unidentified source of noise, you might want to try throttling the return water flow path. I find that my externals can be quite noisy unless I throttle the return to ensure that the filter itself stays full of water. What I do is throttle back on the return flow until everything is quiet then gradually open the return until the noise level gets louder. Then I throttle down just enough to stop that noise. The end result is as much flow as I can get, with a dead quiet filter.