Clean your canister filter hoses!

[gardenman]

My canister filters had been slowing down for a while and I couldn't figure out why. There's a grate on the inlet so nothing big can enter and any water leaving will have gone through the filter so it should be clean. The impellers looked fine. The hoses are black so there should be no algae inside. I found it very unlikely that there could be an issue in the intake or exhaust hoses. I was wrong. After the last cleaning I decided to order a hose brush (under $7) and just see if there was anything in the hoses.  Yikes! I got the hose brush today and the intake and exhaust hoses on both filters were horrible. Globs of stuff came out of each. (Bacteria perhaps?) Once the black, slimy stuff was flushed out and the filters restarted, they were back to their old flow rates. It's amazing the amount of gunk that was in the hoses and restricting the water flow. If you have a canister filter that's slowing down, clean out the hoses. You may just find that's the problem.

[Colu]

I clean my intake and outtake  pipes every 6 months its amazing how much sludge buildup in the pipes

[gardenman]

On 6/21/2021 at 8:28 PM, Colu said:

I clean my intake and outtake  pipes every 6 months its amazing how much sludge buildup in the pipes

Imagine what they'd look like after four years. That's where mine were. Both filters are just over four years old. I'd never bought the insanely long brushes as I'd just assumed the water coming and going wouldn't clog the hoses. They will get cleaned much more frequently from now on.

[Guppysnail]

Just last year I bought my first canister for my Plecos to have a fast current.....hmmm..nope..haven’t ever cleaned hoses...oh boy amazon it is this will be interesting.  Thank you very much for sharing this.

[Remi de Groot]

Got this on my to do list for weeks now. Not one of my favorite jobs 🤫.

My Eheim hoses are just enough see trough that I see the buildup if I shine a light on it.

[gardenman]

It's not a bad job on my Cascade canisters, I'd just never thought it would be necessary. The hoses have a valve on them that you shut and then unscrew the hoses from the canister. I then just carried them to my sink and plopped them down there and reopened the valve. I then started to push in the brush and within a few inches of the brush entering, black slimy gunk started to emerge from the other end of the hose. Yikes! The hoses were nearly completely blocked with gunk. Once I had them all brushed out I then held them up under the faucet to flush them and then reinstalled them on the filters. I knew the flow rate had been lower than normal and while the impellers looked fine, I'd just assumed they were worn or the motors were having issues of some sort. I was getting ready to order new impellers when I opted instead to try the long hose brush first. I'm glad I did. It turns out the impellers are fine and it was just gunk in the hoses that was causing the slowdown. Lesson learned. The gunk in the hoses was probably good gunk/bacteria as the water quality was great, but it was slowing things down too much.

[Randall from Texas]

This is why Cory hates canisters!