dano569

i was gonna see how often and how everyone rinses their filters.

dahly

My tank has been running for 3 months now and I rinsed the plastic filter for just the second time last night. I wasn't too dirty and compared to the first time I did it after 6 weeks. I do plan however to rinse every month from now on. If it seem to need more, Ill do it more. It's really pretty easy and I change water twice a week anyway. I will say, the fish seemed delighted with the rinse. The White Skirts were flying around the tank!

Gunnie

When the flow gets sluggish I usually rinse them a bit.

Butterfly

About once a month in tank water.
Carol

Jason

I have to do it about once a week or whenever the flow is slow

dano569

j-man,do you rinse with aquarium water?

Jason

At first i didn't but now I changed to rinsing with aquarium water. I dont when i'm medicating though in case their might be bad bacterial still in the water

MagpieTear

Whenever I do a water change, squish it out in a bucket of freshly drained water. Seems the coarser sponge never has anything but bits of java Moss and leftover brine shrimp in it, but the polishing pad is nasty, even after just a week.

MissMTS

I do it about once a month with aquarium water

Sabi

me too.
Me 3.....

Also, sometimes twice a week and once a month!lol!

MelyBu

More like, Whenever I can remember. LOL. Which is probably about once a month. I use tap water despite fishlore's better judgement. The main black spongs is always clean, but the other small sponges are

capekate

Hi Melybu
are you aware that when you wash out your sponge in tap water you are killing off your beneficial bacteria? Its never a good idea to get rid of that 'good' bacteria. Why not just rinse the sponge in the bucket of tank water you use when doing a water change?

~ kate

COBettaCouple

Ours get rinsed in tank water each week with the PWC & tank cleaning.

peter

Both filters once a month.

Gargoyle

I clean mine once every other year just to be safe.....

tan.b

used to do it every week, but as it was never that dirty and was concerned i was messing about with the good bacteria unnecessarily i changed to when the flow is sluggish....easy to spot as the filter blows less bubbles!!

Peterpiper

Only clean the filter once a month, we have a marine tank that is lightly stocked.
as each tank is different, ie volume, stocking levels, type of filter etc, the cleaning of the filter would depend on the tank setup.
A tip for people using canister filters, we have installed a tee and 2 valves in the return line, so after a filter clean we flush the filter and run the first 15-20lt into a bucket. By doing this we dont get that little cloud of crud going back into the tank when the filter is turned back on..

hssea

when the flow slows down