My First Water Change With New Fish!

[Lizzard111]

I never thought about it honestly,

it's good to know this.
About filter sponges Yes. I have very crappy filtration through my cover and my sponges are thin so I'm replacing them 2/3 times a week.
For internal filter you should be cleaning them once a week and after a month replace.
For external filter it's one month for cleaning (as far as I remeber)
 
You don't have to worry about it much and once you'll be cleaning it you will see how much dirt it has so you can judge how often it should be cleaned,once sponge will be stiffy and start to crush they should be replaced as little channels in sponge are not keeping micro dirts.
I know I should be cleaning it in tank water but 3 times a week is a pain, I should have enough bacteria in substrate.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Hmm, I have an external filter on my tank.
 
I bought it 2nd hand with mature media and the guy who I bought it from is a member of this forum so he was experienced and knew his stuff, won tank of the month as well.
 
He said don't need to clean it very often, every 3 to 6 months depending on how big tank is and how much dirts gets in. Well, since installing the filter, I have not cleaned it. Only ot it about 2 weeks ago though.
 
Its a massive Tetratec EX1200 for a 90l tank! (Planning to get a bigger tank in future so that filter will do and get a Fluval 305 or something like that for the 90l)
 
So how often should I clean the filter?

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

On a little tank like yours'...you could probably go 3 or 4 months. But really you don't need to clean it until you see a reduction in flow. Whichever makes you happy really!

 

[Ch4rlie]

That's cool. Good to know. Will leave it until flow reduces.

Will see how long that takes, if more than 3 or 4 months, might just open filter up to have a look.

Thanks

 

[Lizzard111]

 
He said don't need to clean it very often, every 3 to 6 months depending on how big tank is and how much dirts gets in. Well, since installing the filter, I have not cleaned it. Only ot it about 2 weeks ago though.
 
Its a massive Tetratec EX1200 for a 90l tank! (Planning to get a bigger tank in future so that filter will do and get a Fluval 305 or something like that for the 90l)

This is even better that filter should be changed once every few months.
 
I reaad recently about external filters and although this Fluval is Itally company which performes well there's also german company which has hundreds of possitive reviews. Some people had it for 4 years and it still works great. Even people who had some bad experience would still recommend it and buy another one as customer service replace anything without problems, even seals are delivered for free. Most Eheims are for big tanks but they have for small too, I found s video about installation and it also shows comparison with Fluval 45 (guy on vidieo says it's more noisy)
21:30  http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNh8zd3zZdo
 
And here is official website:
Eheim http/www.eheim.com/en_GB/home
Couldn't find Fluval website though.