cleaning 2080 pre-filter

[ilove2pigs]

About 2 months back I lost both my Panaque goldine and Xingu which I had for about 5 years already. Despite all the medication, didn't manage the save the 2 and I attribute it to poor filter maintenance.

Tank is 422 with 2 x fluval 4 plus internal mechanical filters cleaned weekly. 2 x 2080 cleaned yearly or 9 months. I thought I was keeping the water clean but sigh..

After the death of the panaques, I clean the prefilters every 3 months now.

Took some pictures to show how dirty it can get. Only 7 clown loaches and 1 sterbai cory in the tank.

Sharing here hopefully it's useful

[ilove2pigs]

It seems the picture is ridiculously big. Can I trouble the moderators to delete this thread please? I'll start a new one with resized pictures.

Thank you for your trouble

[zapbranigan]

even my FX5 + eheim 2080 gets dirty quickly. I have to wash either one every 2-3 months. My tank is a 522 and only 1 adult discus, 2x adult L333, 3x L183, and 10x bleeding heart tetras. Be careful people!

[ziw3i]

sorry for the loss....

IMHO, canister i think shld only be act as bio filtration where inlet is in the middle to filter only water(as much as possible).

for mechnical filtration, OHF shld be better as the filter wool can be changed frequently.

I clean my canister once a year, yes it will be very very dirty but shld be ok as i have this setup for quite a long time.

[zonkkie]

I have a different experience - I use 2080 also but clean every 6 months. Its dirty but not super dirty. Used to be like 15 discus + altums. Like ziwei mention - my inlet is at mid level for it to be mainly bio filtration.

In my opinion, panaque and canister filter do not go together due to the amount of waste generated by panaques and the difficulty in maintaining canisters. OHF or sumps will be best because its very easy to change wools.

[patclay]

Bro, sorry for your lost. You may want to consider ohf as bros here suggested ad they have better filtration system.

[ilove2pigs]

Thanks for the advice guys.

I have 2 mechanical filters cleaned weekly and filter inlets are at mid-level, water change 90% per week. Been keeping the same set up for 5 years. And panaque just kept growing slowly. My goldline was about 12 inches. Then it just happened one day. And it got worse. Then it's over.

Haha, miss panaques. They have unique look

[Saikological]

looks nice haha.

i try to clean my 2080 every 3-4 months max. longer makes it inefficient and decreases capacity. you can see it in the tank when more algae start to grow for example. cleaning the filter will stop that.

[yanki2]

hmm just curious how sure you are that the death of the fishes were due to poor maintenance of the cannister?

[Haohao]

The best way to use canister for messy fishes who leave tank with many left over food is to use a sponge covering the inlet. One good one is eheim model.

I clean those sponge using tank water when i did my wc. Be prepared to get pleasantly surprise how much cleaner is ur cannister after 3 months usage.


On a side note, im a absolutely clean tank n clean water guy so i still clean my canister monthly. My fishes love me like im their bf. =D