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Hey everyone,
Can anyone give me advice on maintaining/cleaning my filter. I recently moved my gorgeous tandanus into a 4ft tank from a 2ft tank. He is much happier and has even grown a bit more! I bought a new canister filter (noodles, fine white pad, thick black pad) which was doing an awesome job for the first two months but now my water is getting a bit cloudy. I read that the less you touch them the better but I am not sure if this is right. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I do ask my local aquarium shops but I have found their advice to be not very reliable. I have much more faith in my Planet Catfish buddies!!
ALL filters need maintenance. Canister filters need less frequent maintenance than other kinds -- once every 2-6 months, depending on the canister filter model and bioload, as opposed to once every 1-2 weeks for some other kinds of filters, but even canister filters need maintenance.
If you tell us what canister filter you have, we can probably give you more specific advice on how often and how you need to maintain it.
If your water is starting to get cloudy I would certainly do something pretty quickly. You'll ideally need a couple of buckets with water siphoned out of your aquarium, one to squeeze out most of the waste in and one to finish the job (aquarium water should be used rather than tap water to prevent killing off the bacteria). Once everything is OK again I would think about doing some filter maintenance every 2-4 weeks, maybe just cleaning one of the pads or the 'noodles' at a time in rotation.
Thanks for the advice so far. Its an Aqua One CF-1000. I only have one tandanus in the tank, he's about 25cm long. He eats 3 pellets twice a day but lately will eat even more. I am cutting him back to 3 only once a day til I get the water sorted. Ph was a little acidic but I am levelling this back, nitrites were ok, ammonia was ok.
Never heard of the Aqua One, 'fraid to say. Coelacanth's advice is excellent, so do give that a try.
Tanks can sometimes cloud up over night if food starts rotting inside. A 10 gal killifish tank of mine was cloudy this morning because I'd dumped too many flakes in while feeding in the dark last night. Vacuumed out the uneaten food, did a water change and added some ammonia blocker.
Besides cleaning out your canister, you might also want to clean out the tank and do a couple of small water changes.
I have 3 filters in my tank, so when i come to cleaning i completely rinse out the wool etc in tap water untill clear. I alternate cleaning between my internal one and external two with my internal having more. The bio load in the other filters will sustain such cleaning, and the filters will work better this way.
And i do believe having two filters is better than 1 but only in bigger tanks. Or am i going on and on too much here
I followed Coelocanth's advice and cleaned my filter out, rinsing in tank water, I did however replace the fine white filter as it was a bot beyond rinsing and replaced it with a more sturdy fine filter pad. The water didnt seem to clear to much so I did a 50% water change and after a few days it now seems back to normal.
My Tandanus is so happy! Since he has moved into his new bigger tank as well as having a barrel to hide in he has grown a few more cms.
