Canister filter servicing.

[Pepere]

Aside from the price of a canister filter, I had effectively been scared off from trying one by youtube presenters describing it as such an odious task to service them.  
 

I serviced my Fluval 207s today in order to add purigen to them replacing the carbon that was included with them.

Now I am perfectly willing to grant that bigger canister filters such as the FX 6 may well be a different kettle of fish given its size and weight, but the 207 was not at all onerous.

I turned it off, shut off the flow. Placed the canister in a bucket to open the top, and pulled out the lower container and left the motorhead in the bucket.

 

I had another bucket of dechlorinated water and squeezed out the various sponges and rined out the biomedia, threw out the carbon, put in the purigen, and had everything together up and running again in no time.

 

I was left scratching my head, (after washing my hands of course) wondering what the big hulabaloo was all about.

 

Maybe if you let it go 3-6 months… but it is simple and quick enough to just do it monthly or every other month if going too long is the hassle.  Even lubed the gaskets with silicone grease…

Nothing in the instruction manual says “do not service for at least 3 months or until flow is noticeably decreased…

Other than the purchase price, everything has been to the good.

Considering that I paid nearly half the purchase price of one on an utterly useless ridiculously designed Seachem Tidal 35…. Also praised heavily by a certain youtube personality…

Edited June 11 by Pepere

[FLFishChik]

I just bought. 75g tank for a future project and was considering getting a canister filter for it… however, like you were , I am scared to take the jump simply because of  how laborious cleaning it seems to be from watching a few YouTubers. I keep going back and forth between sticking with HOB and sponge filters or purchasing a canister. 

[Peaceful Fish]

  Never used a canister. Personally I prefer air driven filters like sponge or UGF.  The cheap double sponges are the easiest to clean. Just slip them off the and ring them out in a bucket with water changes. Co-op ones are good because they don’t have to be serviced often. I recently tried a UGF in a 5 gallon beta tank and like it.  I think if I was starting a new tank, it would be a UGF. 

[Pepere]

I am so much happier with the flow from my fluval 207 with a spray bar across the back in my 29 gallon.

I have a coop prefilter sponge on the inlet.

Building a tank from new, I think I would go with under gravel filter plates and plumbing that into the inlet instead of a prefilter sponge and use the substrate as my prefilter.

[Pepere]

On 6/10/2023 at 7:31 PM, Peaceful Fish said:

Personally I prefer air driven filters like sponge or UGF.  

I understand that sentiment and have been there..

once I installed pressurized CO2 though it is beneficial to have circular flow to keep the co2 bubbles in suspension and not just rise to the surface and pop.

full width circular flow throughout the tank also pays dividends in circulating dissolved co2 and nutrients to all the plants.

[Peaceful Fish]

I’m a newbie to planted tanks. I’m going low tech there as well with lower to medium light plants. Still trying to figure out the balance of how long to leave the lights on. I just cut back a little because of algae.   

 

 

[Pepere]

I spent 8 months trying to figure out how to balance a low tech tank.

Then I gave up.

It eluded me.

I plan to try again at some point with a small 20 gallon or so with all easy plants, anubias, java fern, crypts etc… But for now I am thankful for the help I get from CO2 and significant flow

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/10/2023 at 3:33 PM, Pepere said:

I was left scratching my head, (after washing my hands of course) wondering what the big hulabaloo was all about.

 

maybe if you let it go 3-6 months… but it was simple and quick enough to just do it monthly if going too long is the hassle.  Even lubed the gaskets with silicone grease…

I have to agree....

Especially given my constant cleaning of a variety of tanks and filtration. There is a lot of effort put into explaining why you don't need to. It's pretty easy to get things clean and that alone let's your equipment do its job more effectively.

Cleaning a canister once a month seems reasonable to me. The marketing of "it can run for MONTHS without cleaning doesn't make sense to me. This is also why you have them being designed with easy clean prefilters now. To encourage cleaning of the mechanical filtration media.

On 6/10/2023 at 4:53 PM, Peaceful Fish said:

Still trying to figure out the balance of how long to leave the lights on. I just cut back a little because of algae.   

8 hours usually is a good window.

[Peaceful Fish]

Good to know. I actually backed down from 10 to 8 this week. 

[AndEEss]

I find the FX4/6 EASIER to service than my 207.

Here's why: it has a hose connection at the bottom that allows you to (after closing the outlet valve) drain the entire canister of water. What was a 45lb behemoth becomes a 4lb bucket. 

After it's drained, remove the quick release valves and take the entire thing to your sink/outside. Quite easy to service. And, when you clean out some of the mulm that builds up in there you help reduce dissolved organic matter in the aquarium. I've found that significantly reduces BBA.

[DeadStang]

A friend from work has two FX6s and two FX4s. She cleans them only annually and complains about how awful it is, so I was hesitant to use a canister. But I recently got rope fish and African butterfly fish, so I needed to seal the top of my 75 way better then can be done with a HOB to prevent escapees. I bought an FX2 as I planned on still using my ACO sponges and Ziss moving media filters. I didn't want too much water flow as I also have angel fish and gouramis, which is why I did the FX2 instead of anything bigger. I couldn't make the diffuser work, so I directed the tank inflow onto the top of my sponges so it doesn't blow water around too much.

The FX2 has been up and running for 3 weeks. I can't get behind cleaning so infrequently in general (like my friend) and I like to use carbon filtration media, which expires after 2-3 weeks in a heavily stocked, planted tank full of driftwood and such. So today I cracked that little bad boy and replaced my chemical filtration pads -- piece of cake. I did not "clean" the sponges or do anything beyond just replacing the pads, but honestly it was (is) really not a big deal to mess with the FX2 canister at all. I believe the FX4 is slightly larger, but that model has a bottom drain valve (which the FX2 does not), so it might even be easier to deal with.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I’ve owned a variety of Eheim canisters and agree with you @Peperethey have their place In The hobby and are very effective. I think what I like is what you’ve alluded to - customization. I can go hog wild on chemical filtration, I can switch it up and load it with pot scrubbers or 30 ppi sponge, or do a little of all of it. I think the outflow is key as well - need to angle the flow to one area, or maybe need good gas exchange and to get that surface agitated. They can do all of that. I liked the Fluval 207 I set up for a friend and if I found one on sale and had a project I’d totally grab it. I think the other thing is using an intake sponge - it creates another BB surface, grabs the large particles, and can be a source of food for your scavengers.  

[gardenman]

If you use a canister filter, invest in the long, really long, flexible brushes to clean the tubing going to and from the tank. It's a good investment. 

[adk gal]

I use a rifle cleaning kit with a cotton swab to clean my tubing.  Works very well.   The kits are around 10$ but you can screw rods on.  Totally worth it.

[Shrimpee]

The Fluval 207 tube disconnectors are superior to the FX6 as I always spill water with the FX6 but with the 207 I barely get a drop. Also the priming handle for the 207 is super easy. The Fluval 207 is a little bit harder to clean though.

[Flumpweesel]

I clean my 306 ( it's old) about quarterly sometimes less often. I have a co op prefilter sponge on there now and it really makes a huge difference. I don't find the task that onerous and I can get it done while the tank refills from a vaccine.

The prefilter sponge has really reduced the amount of grot and I imagine if I removed the polishing layer I could easily leave it 6 to 12 months.

I like the canister because I know it can cope for these long periods so I don't have to worry if I'm away or unwell it will cope . It's one thing to get someone to feed fish but asking them to clean a filter is bigger ask.

[adk gal]

I was looking at the Fluval 207 Canister filter also. I noticed it pushed 207GPH of water. I looked at the Marineland internal power head. The 1200 pushes 296GPH. Being elderly, picking up a full canister filter is less than comfortable.

So I bought the Marineland Power head for $26, put it inside my tank. I connected a tube to the top of the tank to a 2QT dollar store bottle, put the bottle in a smokey black file box, put 4 tubes in the bottom and it works excellent. I use a hose connector inside the cap of my $ store bottle so it won't come out. Many holes in the bottle. Kinda of a reverse canister filter. The bottle sits on an aquarium co op bag of rings. Inside the bottle are  Sponges  and poly fill.

I do have a dark grey box sitting on my aquarium though. Very easy to clean. I have used this filter for so many years, I am on my 3rd power head.  IT works. Easy also.