K. My Eheim 2213 has been running for like 3 months probably and I've never cleaned it. I know it's probably time. Do I just take everything out and rinse it? (In tank water acourse).

Once this is done, do I need to worry about my cycle stumbling? I know that there's still gonna be biospira all over stuff in it, but there definetly won't be as much. I have 2 Emperor 400's on my tank, so I have 4 biowheels, but I also have a bare bottom tank.......No gravel growing bacteria! Will I have enough bacteria to support my tank until the Eheim catches back up?? I always get scared when I do this kinda stuff.


Also, I have a nitrate question..... if you have TONS of bio-spira in your tank, will your nitrAtes be higher since there's more bacteria eating power?

sheesh..3 months without a cleaning..you should be ashamed!

what i always do to clean out my canister filters is take a section of media out at a time and squeeze it/rinse it off in tank water. i never clean all the media at once, i section it out over the course of a few days to make sure i don't remove too much bacteria and cause a mini cycle crash. same thing goes with intake tubes; i'll clean them out on a day seperate from when i'm cleaning the media because bacteria lives inside of them.

i really wouldn't worry too much about having a bare tank bottom. bacteria grows on every available surface in the aquarium..which means assuming you have a stable cycle it's literally coating the bottom and sides of your tank providing just as much denitrification as you'd get having gravel in the tank. well maybe not quite as much, but its not too far off..

just to be on the safe side you might want to watch your water levels a little closely afterwards since you haven't cleaned your filter out in so long..you might have a mini cycle.

Well, I was told to clean it about every 2 months.... should I be doing it more than that??

How long have the emperor's been running? And do you have any bio-media in the extra baskets? If they have been running for a while, and you are not overstocked, I would think the bio wheels could handle any spike. If you just rinse everthing out in tank water, I don't see why there should be a spike at all.

Robin

eh, i always clean mine out every month..sometimes more, sometimes less. it all depends on how heavily stocked you are and how many other filters you have running (see, i didn't notice you said you also had two emperors running earlier). monthly or every other month would probably be alright for your tank

My Emperors have been running for....mm.... one's been running a year, the other one maybe 8 months? I *do* have extra media in the baskets. And I'm overstocked by one fish. I think I'll just brave it out and watch my params really carefully.... Thanks for the input guys.