Cleaning Canister filter?

[epond83]

I was just wondering how others cleaned there canister filters. the faucet gives good pressure to clean the sponges and stuff but i know clorinated water kills all my good bactera, so yeah

 

[cchase85]

My personal opinion is that there is enough bacteria in other places in the tank that it doesn't matter a whole lot if you replace filter media or kill the bacteria in the filter. This may be largely dependent on setup and stocking of the tank, and some may disagree.

I clean my filter media with a faucet every month and I've never had any nitrite or ammonia spikes after doing so.

As to how I clean it, I unhook everything and put it in the tub, pull everything out, rinse the filters in the sink, reassemble everything, and then clean the tub.

 

[FroggyFox]

I have like 3 or more media baskets in each of my canister filters...so what I do is I make a point of changing out the media in one or two of them (less than half), then setting aside most of the rest and thoroughly cleaning the actual canister, the impeller, any sponges etc in hot chlorinated water and then when I'm finished with that I slosh some dechlorinated water through the remaining media that is going back in the tank to get rid of any big gunk. Not real thoroughly on that last one, like no scrubbing or anything.

 

[seastaar88]

i swish and squish the sponges in my rena in a bucket of water out of my tank. i just try to get most of the gunk out. and i only clean it once every few months.