Fluval Cannister Filter

[mifty12]

HI Guys

I have got myself a new Fluval 305 cycling on my 240 ltr tank. It came with the sponge screen filters and three baskets containg carbon in the bottom, carbon & biomax in the middle and biomax in the top as per the initial set up reccomendations.

My question is how often do you change/clean the media and what is your general maintenance programme on your filter. Is the media type and placement okay.

I only have a community tank with-

2 gold gouramis
1 algae eater
1 bristlenose
1 ruby shark
13 glowlight tetras
5 diamond tetras
1 black phantom tetra
3 clown loaches

Any pointers would be appreciated.


Thanks



Justin

 

[Callum]

i clean mine and all the media in it once a week when i do my waterchanges, and the media placement sounds fine. and remember to grease the rubber band sealer thing.

 

[gizmo001i]

Hiya mifty12,
I clean mine once a month and only clean half of the media, so that the other half still has a full bio load. Also, you may think about replacing the carbon filter for a more porous media which can hold more biological bugs. The carbon is only useful to remove such things as medication and unlike the other media, needs to be replaced on a regular basis. Unless there is a specific reason for having carbon in your filter, then replace it with a more useful media. Hope this works and good luck with the new filter. I have one and have had no problems with it at all.

 

[Callum]

just out of intrest what would be a better media and i thought carbon made the water crystal clear?

 

[gizmo001i]

Hi,
I use Fluval Pre filter media and the filter wool as well as the filter sponges. The filter wool gives clean water whilst the Pre filter media gives good mechanical filtration for the larger debris and good biological filtration. Hope this helps. Of course the final decision is yours and as long as your filter is keeping your tank parameters in check, then all is OK. It is just that Carbon Filters only really filter out chemicals and easily becomes saturated so that it has to be replaced on a regular basis, they can also leech the toxins back into the tank when they become saturated. Whereas unless you are adding meds to your tank, the biotope within your tank should cope with any nasty chemicals that may occur. Of course water changes are required to remove any other nasties such as nitrate, but water changes are still required even if you use a carbon filter. Anyway, that is how I see it works, but if I am wrong, then hopefully someone will correct any mistakes I have made. Remember, if it works for you and you are happy, then don't fix what isn't broke lol.

 

[mifty12]

Thanks for the replies,

The only reason i have the carbon in is because that is what was supplied with the filter, it needs replacing every 8 weeks or so i am led to believe. I have only had the filter running for three weeks so once the carbon has had its useful life i will replace it with the pre-filter media. You mentioned about filter wool, where abouts in the filter do you put this?

 

[Rooster]

You should ONLY "clean" a cannister filter - internal OR external when the flowrate drops.... could be weeks, most likely to be MONTHS ! There is NO advantage in maintaining it before

 

[sub.42]

You really want to know? As long as my water params are ok, and the water is clear, mine can go for 6 months without a clean!

sub.

 

[Boids-n-more]

I have a old fluval 303 and i might clean it once a year but i set mine up differnet from everyone else i know. First i hook it too my under gravel filter plates so its useing the gravel as the mechanical filter and i can just vacuum it out at evey week with the water changes. In the first stage i have the bio max pieces just in case and the next 2 stages i run spunges in both of them. Even once a year when i would clean the filter it realy didn't need it and it was just a quick squeeze of the sponges and slap it back to geather. A few years ago when i broke my tank down for a move it was sqeeky clean under the plates.