bigreddog

I just read Moppi's thread about the soap cleaning and caught aquarist's reply about never cleaning the inside of the filter. I just got done doing a complete filter cleaning without soap of course, but am I expected to see a crash in my cycle? I took the media out and kept it in tank water while I cleaned the insides of the filter with just warm water, reason being the water was always coming out between the 2 outputs and I was rinsing my filters every other day in tank water just to keep it going. Am I not supposed to clean the insides and if not how to you keep the filters going without being plugged all the time?

griffin

i think it's ok to clean/rinse filter media in old tank water. cleaning the inside should also be ok since most of the bacteria live on the filter media.

SWilkins

I have to clean mine out too. Sometimes there is just some stuff that kinda clogs things up. I have a feeling it is from too much food...oopsie. I have a toothbrush that is used only for tank stuff and I just use a little tank water and give the inside of the HOB the once over especially where the little twirly thing is (yes I know it has a name but I cannot think of it right now).

aquarist48

Don't fret BigRedDog Let me explain why I never clean my filter box itself. It's kind of a personal choice really. Although the good bacteria is on all surfaces of the filter and the aquarium most is found in the filter media as Griffin said. I want all of the good bacteria that I can possibly get so I do not clean mine. If I were to clean it, I'd do it in siphoned tank water and not tap with chlorine in it. When I clean my impellers I use a Q-Tip and that's it. Putting your media in the tank while you clean it is great

Your cycle should not crash just because you clean the box itself (with filter media in the tank of course)
Hope that helps a bit
Ken