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I have a 500 Ltr tank being filtered by two 1500 Ltr / hr canister filters, I have two large Royal Plecs ( Panaque ) who eat wood like it's going out of fashion, My question is because my filters get so dirty with fine sludge type mud would it be ok to clean one filter thoroughly with high pressure tap water with the other filter being left on line. would the very clean filter be upto working standard as far as bacteria etc by the time I clean the other filter say 1 month later?
there by cleaning on a two month cycle.

Thanks

if you wanted to do this i'd be tempted to 'seed' the cleaned filter

I.E. add a mature sponge from the other filter or similar. Alternately you could add a capsule of something like BluStart from Ferplast http://www.ferplast.com/en/shop/fish-supplies/blustart

If your canister is set up right you should be able to clean the mechanical media (sponge etc) with tap water/hose/fire etc to remove all the physical waste then just give the biological media a light rinse in a bucket of tank water. Especially if you only do one canister at a time you shouldn't experience any sort of mini-cycle, if you do try clean them out more often so they don't get as clogged and require such vigorous cleaning.

I couldn't handle keeping Panaques with canisters, I know how much sawdust my four make! You could always set up some sort of high-flow mechanical only filtration (eg. big canister filled with sponge/foam) to try take case of most of the sawdust and then leave the other two for bio.

I found this to be an interesting thread on MFK on keeping filters cleaner longer:

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forum ... quaculture

I tried putting big sponge filters on the intakes of my canister filters. They are only for mechanical filtering, my canisters do the biological. I can pull them and rinse under tap water every 3 days or so. Takes maybe ten minutes. Works well for keeping the wood pulp from my Royals out of the canisters.

Agree with jtgrimes. You could also try setting the intakes an little higher to avoid sucking up so much wood and then siphon the 'wood drift' out daily... One 10ltr bucket should do it... Five minute job.

Hi all,
I'm with "jtgrimes60" & "Jay1" as well.

I'd add a big coarse foam block (PPI10) to the filter inlet, and then I'd syphon wood waste and clean the sponge every week.

I use the 12" x 4" x 4" drilled blocks they sell at Koi places. They have a central 1" hole that goes 75% of the way through the sponge, and you can buy them for ~£10.

Have a look at these threads: <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 1&p=254076> & <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 3&p=249980>.

cheers Darrel