- Place your canister filter in an easy to get to spot for cleaning. If you don't, maintenance will be neglected because it's a hassle to service the unit.
- If the manufacturer of the canister filter you buy offers any useful tools for making the task of cleaning the unit a faster, easier, and drier one, in all likelyhood the more often you will do it! This we learned first hand after adding the double quick-disconnect valves to our Marineland Magnum 350 canister filter, and purhcased the handy attachable Power Kleen Gravel Washer to periodically siphon clean the bottom of our aquarium.
- Purchase extra micron-pleat cartridges, floss, sponges, granular activated carbon (GAC), and other filtering materials or absorbing products (read reviews & compare prices) to be used in the canister. By doing so you can quickly change or rotate the material in minutes, eliminating the hassle of having to remove and clean or rejuvinate the only medium you have on hand before you can place it back into the filter.
- You will notice a slow down in your water flow rate when the filtration material in the canister becomes dirty. You can never clean or change it too often, unless of course you are using the canister for biological filtration purposes. If not, the filtering media or material should be cleaned or changed regularly, at least once a week. If left dirty this will decrease your water flow rate, as well as allow for the accumulation of an unwanted waste load on your system, which in turn contributes to poor water quality problems, the number one being an excess build-up of nitrates the aquarium.
- Because algae, calcium, and salt crystal build-up can occur inside the hoses, canister chamber, impeller and other areas of the unit where water passes through, at least once a month the filter should be taken completely apart and all sections cleaned to remove any possible blockages.
- Don't be concerned about losing any biological bacteria from cleaning or changing your filter material. Remember, the purpose of a basic canister filter is to remove and clean your tank water of waste and debris. It's not a biological filter, unless of course for some reason you are using it for that purpose.
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