Cannister Filter Maintenance

[DraggingTail]

I have a Fluval 303 on a 55 gallon tank. It has carbon, seachem purigen, ceramic, seachem matrix and filter floss.

What maintenance should I perform on the filter? How often?

 

[sa6hir]

Well carbon won’t last long so if you wanted to use carbon that would have to be changed on a regular basis. I think it lasts about 7 days. Filter floss will have to be either cleaned or changed again every 3-7 days. Purigen will change colour I think seachem states 6 months. And at least every 2-3 weeeks clear out of the canister to get rid of all the decaying matter. Not a easy choice.

 

[DraggingTail]

Well carbon won’t last long so if you wanted to use carbon that would have to be changed on a regular basis. I think it lasts about 7 days. Filter floss will have to be either cleaned or changed again every 3-7 days. Purigen will change colour I think seachem states 6 months. And at least every 2-3 weeeks clear out of the canister to get rid of all the decaying matter. Not a easy choice.

Do I rinse the seachem matrix and ceramic tubes? Is the green film on those part of the biological filter?

 

[sa6hir]

If u wanted to rinse the matrix and ceramic I would use only water from the tank. Otherwise you will end up killing all the bacteria. Anything green, Brown, red will be algae, just wash it out under tap water unless this is growing on ur media, in ur case this shouldn’t happen because there will be no direct light on the media.