Proper Filter Maintanence

[aquamike]

Hi everyone,

I have a three month old 135 gallon freshwater tank. I have well water. This tank has completely cycled. I have two 2215 eheim canister filters running on this tank. I currently have two angelfish, seven glowlight tetras and 5 sterbia cory catfish. I have a couple of filter questions.

Starting from the bottom of the filters and working up, they each have the ehfi-mech media,coarse blue pad,ehfi-substrate,fine filter pad, and then a carbon pad. All this media seems like it could be hard to clean.

I plan on removing the carbon pad in each one. I will replace in one of them a bio chem bag and in the other i will replace the carbon pad with chemi- pure. Is this a good set up? Heard carbon pads are pretty much useless.

Also, how often should these filters be cleaned and how should i do it. I know the pads need to be gently cleaned off in siphoned tank water. Thanks for the suggestions to make this task easier and to keep me from doing something wrong.


Thanks a bunch,

Mike

 

[Tolak]

I wouldn't bother with the carbon, bio chem, or chemi-pure. In a cycled aquarium none of this is needed.

The loading of your filters sounds like a pretty much standard setup. I let canisters go until I notice some slowing of the water flow. In a tank that size, with that light of stocking, it could be several months, though some folks like to clean them more often than that.

I've found that some home made equipment helps with cleaning Eheim's classic series. A bucket, and a couple of containers to hold the ehfi-mech & ehfi-substrat are needed. I use a couple old margerine containers with a couple dozen 1/8" holes drilled in the bottoms.

Fill the bucket with old tank water, open the filter, and toss the top pad in the bucket. Put the substrat in one of the containers. Put the coarse filter in the bucket. Put the ehfi-mech in the other container. Squeeze the pads a few times in the bucket to clean them, then submerge & drain the containers with the ehfi mech & substrat. It helps to swish them a little with your hand.

After a few swishes & rinses, reload the canister. Use that bucket of nasty water to water houseplants or your garden, plants love it.

 

[aquamike]

I wouldn't bother with the carbon, bio chem, or chemi-pure. In a cycled aquarium none of this is needed.

The loading of your filters sounds like a pretty much standard setup. I let canisters go until I notice some slowing of the water flow. In a tank that size, with that light of stocking, it could be several months, though some folks like to clean them more often than that.

I've found that some home made equipment helps with cleaning Eheim's classic series. A bucket, and a couple of containers to hold the ehfi-mech & ehfi-substrat are needed. I use a couple old margerine containers with a couple dozen 1/8" holes drilled in the bottoms.

Fill the bucket with old tank water, open the filter, and toss the top pad in the bucket. Put the substrat in one of the containers. Put the coarse filter in the bucket. Put the ehfi-mech in the other container. Squeeze the pads a few times in the bucket to clean them, then submerge & drain the containers with the ehfi mech & substrat. It helps to swish them a little with your hand.

After a few swishes & rinses, reload the canister. Use that bucket of nasty water to water houseplants or your garden, plants love it.

Tolak,

Thank you for your suggestions. Your time and help is much appreciated.

Mike