# Fluval 205 and Marineland 350 canister filter questions.



## Doratus (Sep 14, 2010)

I have two tanks. One is 20g and the other is 55g. The 20g has a Fluval 205 and the 55g has a Marineland 350. I have 2 black convicts and 2 cobalt cichlids in the 20g. I have 8 black convicts, a jewel cichlid, and a pleco in the 55g. Both tanks are fully cycled with zero ammonia and stable pH readings.

My usual method of cleaning a fish tank is to generally leave the filter alone and do a lot of water changes. I'm usually afraid to mess with the bacteria in the filter. This is the first time I've owned a canister filter and I really love how discreet they are. However I am now a little bit confused on a few points. Basically I'm just trying to come up with a routine maintenance schedule for the tanks and I just don't know what I should do. I've seen posts where people say to change the filter media once a week but that seems drastic to me. Maybe it isn't though... Any opinions, thoughts, suggestions, or stories would be fantastic.

Thanks for looking,

Colin


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## WhiteGloveAquatics (Sep 3, 2009)

unless the mag350 has bio wheels there is no real BB in that filter. I change mine out 2-3x a week because it works better as a water polisher then anything else.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

I have a Fluval FX5...a little larger but the same principle. I try to go a month between cleaning where I actually turn off and disconnect my filter. When I do that I only replace things like carbon or zeo-carb. Everything else I just rinse off with tank water removed from my regular water changes in a bucket. If any of it needs to be replaced I wouldn't replace all of it at once. All of it in there has the bacteria attached and if I remove it all I loose it all.


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## Doratus (Sep 14, 2010)

So for the Marineland, which is only a carbon filter, I can replace that more often because there is no bacteria in that? So is that kind of filtration sufficient? It blows my mind that the marineland 350 would be so popular among so many people when it is such a waste of space.... Maybe I'm just confused here. This is really the original reason for the post.


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