so you just got an o7 series canister congratulations now it's cleaning time well
you came to the right place we're gonna go over step by step how to break it down how to clean
it how to put it back together let's go okay guys so we got the canister from underneath the tank
if you're having trouble getting your canister out disconnecting these hoses without making a
mess everywhere make sure you go watch part one of this mini series i'll put a link up here and it'll
be in the description below after you watch that then come back over here and we'll get this thing
cleaned up so the only thing we're gonna need to clean this canister filter is one empty bucket and
whatever replacement sponges or pads that you're gonna put in there that's all you need very simple
so the first thing we're going to do is empty out the water in this canister right into our bucket
and i'm going to tell you why we're going to use that leak
all right we got most of the water out this water which is canister water also known as
tank water is what we're going to use to clean our bio media and the sponges inside our canister
now let's go ahead and take the top off like i showed you guys how to do it in part one
first thing you want to do in order to get this off quickly and easily and very simple
unlock your brackets right here and simply push down on them
the top will pop right off unhook these little hooks from the bottom there you go top is off
no prying and pulling and snatching and trying to grab this thing off i know when i first
started i had a lot of problems getting this thing off too so for those of you that didn't
know how to do it there you go set your top off to the side take your plastic cover off
set that over to the side now first we're going to do is take out our media baskets
whatever media that you use in your 407 it doesn't really matter media is going to be media
everyone has their opinion on what's best as you can see in my top tray i've got some bio balls
then i've got fluval ceramic rings in the next tray so whatever works for you
works for you we're going to take our media baskets dunk it right into our tank water
lost one right there give it a couple of dunks
we're just rinsing it off we're not doing much to this biomedia the bio is what's
carrying all of your beneficial bacteria and you don't want to mess with it too much
set that off to the side same thing with my next tray of bio media
a couple of dunks that's all it needs
and as you can see guys they look pretty clean there's no dirt no gunk nothing's on them
which means that the mechanical part of the filtration was doing its job
set that off to the side my next tray has a bunch of polyfill in it
this polyfill i'm gonna hold it over the bucket here so it doesn't drip all over my towel
this polyfill completely nasty but it's doing its job this goes in your garbage
the polyfill does not get reused it does not get washed this gets
thrown right in the trash and replaced with new polyfill
all right give that tray just a couple of dunks wipe it clean
you see how i'm stacking them in the reverse order here just what i like to do
last tray has my big coarse sponges these core sponges do get reused all you got to do
dunk them in your tank water give them a good squeeze and all the dirt and gunk
that's trapped in them will be released into the water you'll start to notice your
water starts to get a little darker from the dirt that's being released from the sponges
here's a cleaned squeezed out sponge
looking good looking basically brand new
you don't have to replace these core sponges you just squeeze them out and reuse them
same thing to the other one guys give it a good squeeze in the tank water this tank water is
preserving whatever beneficial bacteria is on these sponges there you go good as new
just like the other one set that right here now we'll pull out our other coarse sponges
get all that drippy job and if you guys can see my sponges aren't that dirty
you know this is some particles of substrate that made it into the filter but you see these dark
brown spots this is where it's really dirty but the majority of it has a good pretty good color so
the filter wasn't really that dirty this tells me for all of you to ask the questions of how often
you need to clean your filters this tells me that i can push this filter maybe another two weeks
before changing before cleaning this filter again so let's say for instance i waited a
month to clean this filter the way that it looks to me now the next time i clean this filter i'll
push it to six weeks instead of four weeks that's how you determine the sweet spot of when and how
often you're supposed to be cleaning out your filter it all depends on your tank your buy load
a bunch of different things but this is how you can tell so one by one see a little more dirtier
on the inside guys see but it could have gone a little bit more without needing the cleaning
toss these sponges in here
and we're going to rinse them out now while i'll rinse these out guys let me tell you
that yes you this is a little bit being extra cautious theoretically
these sponges you can rinse them out in regular tap water if you wanted to
that's not going to do that much damage to the total beneficial bacteria that's in your tank
you may lose some bacteria by washing these sponges in tap water due to the chlorine that's
in your tap water but because you're preserving so much bacteria that's in your bio media they
are going to reproduce really well and really fast so whatever amounts of bacteria that you
do kill off these sponges they'll reproduce very quickly but because this is an instructional video
and i want to show you guys how to do it right i'm doing it the cautious side the safe side is
to clean your sponges in the same tank water as well just squeeze them rub the dirt off of them
and they'll look new again here's that clear pad medium sized pad you see all the dirt got out of
it no need to replace these guys you just got to squeeze them out and they'll be ready to go once
again and be ready to be reused as expensive as this hobby is guys reuse what you can reuse
here's the next one nice and clean now i didn't give this tray a dunk let me just give it a dunk
a little rinse as you can see guys this water is pretty nasty now see how nice and brown it
is that's all the dirt that was being held inside those sponges but the trays are clean
your bucket you're definitely going to want to take this over to your sink or your bathtub give
the whole bucket a good rinse no need to preserve any bacteria in here most your bacteria is in your
sponges and in your bio media so i'm gonna go do that right now i'm gonna i'm also gonna rinse out
this tray as well i'll be right back guys well that guy's over there cleaning out that canister
i wanted to remind you to like the video if you like it it helps me and the video out a ton
it gets it out to a whole bunch more people that need the help just like you guys and i
super appreciate it thank you in advance okay i'm back canister is clean rinse it out nice and well
tray is nice and clean now we're going to go ahead and put everything back together
so your clear sponges these white clear sponges go on the back side of the tray
there you go and the blue sponges go on the inside of the tray
which are egg crates these egg crate shape facing out not this side guys this flat side
goes against the tray the egg trays go up and pointing out what the egg crates do
is that they help and provide a little bit more surface area for bacteria to grow on these sponges
so while these sponges are your mechanical media they also do house a lot of beneficial bacteria
so technically their mechanical slash biomedia it works both ways
there you go guys tray is complete slide that one back in by the way you cannot put this in
the wrong side of your canister they only go in one way so don't even worry about it now we're
going to put our trays back together starting from the bottom bottom tray is going to have our
coarse black sponges this time these egg crates shapes are going to be pointing down to the bottom
the reason why is the way this canister works water comes down this side of the canister
through these sponges that are on this side goes down to the bottom then it goes across
to the other side and up the other side so this bottom tray is the first tray that water hits
so as water is going up through the bottom tray we want the water to hit this egg crates first
so egg crates go face down in the bottom tray next tray is going to be your tray of polyfill polyfill
is your last form of mechanical filtration it's your fine mechanical filtration which is going
to help and get your water looking crystal clear here's the bag of polyfill that i use
10 bucks at walmart i think it's seven dollars on amazon i'll have a link to this in the description
below all you do is grab a handful of it pull out a nice wad stick it in one of the trays
there you go grab another handful rip off a nice wad stick it in the other tray
the other side of the same tray and there you go that's your tray of polyfill this is
your last level of mechanical filtration which is going to catch the tiniest of particles floating
around your water giving you crystal clear water next tray up begins your bio media here i've got
my fluoroceramic rings these come with your fluval 407 but this will be your next tray up
and finally in the last tray if you choose to you can put chemical media in here chemi pure blue
works amazing as well as purigen you can put them both in your top tray if you choose to
use chemical media it is not something that's absolutely necessary in your tank but it does help
in water clarity and it helps in removing organics from your water it helps in removing medications
from your water it also helps in removing bad older smell from your water so it's up to you you
choose to use chemical media if you do i'll have links to the in the description below to all the
chemical media that i use in my tanks but for this filter in my case i don't know why a long time ago
i decided to put some bibles in here so this was going right back in there i forgot to put this
little red tube in the bottom tray so make sure you don't forget to do that not a big deal though
you can put it in the reverse order too
there you go grab the basket by the little handle and again it only goes in one way
you cannot put it in this way it will not fit it won't fit guys so you can't go you can't go wrong
there we go now we put our little top back on i don't remember if i
cleaned this or not so i'm just give it a little dunk just a little rinse so you need
put your top back on now at this point you have a few options you could either decide to fill your
canister up with water before putting it back under your tank or you can put it back under
your tank completely empty the way that it is right now some pros and cons if you decide to
put this back under your tank the way that it is nice and empty nice and light so it's very easy
to put underneath your tank you will be able to fill the canister up with your tank water
i showed you how to do that in the previous video all you got to do is use your prime handle here a
couple of times up and down that's gonna suck water into the canister but where's that water
coming from it's coming from your tank which means that the water level in your tank is gonna drain
by doing it that way what you're gonna have to do then is refill your tank if you decide to go
the other route of adding water straight into your canister and then lugging the
heavier canister underneath your tank that will prevent your tank water level from going down but
it is a little bit more lifting to do i guess because the cans are a little bit heavy
that's the way that i prefer to do it but that's just because i don't want to have to
fill up some buckets and go refill the tank i rather just refill the canister one time also
another good reason why i like to put water into my canister directly is because i can also add
what you should add into a canister right after doing the cleaning is a little bit of stability
stability is going to help boost the beneficial bacteria production in your tank and in your
canister and since we were just in here messing around and cleaning things up and squeezing stuff
all over the place stability will help replenish whatever bacteria we did end up killing off
this will help replenish it fast it'll help keep your tank stable and make sure that you don't have
any kind of ammonia spikes or nitrate spikes or any kind of crashes so since i have the canister
open right now now is the best time for me to go ahead and add the stability right to my canister
i add the dosage that is recommended for my entire tank size right into the canister
follow the dosage on the bottle for your size tank next because i'm also going to fill this canister
up with tap water that has chlorine in it i don't want to pump this full of chlorine kill all the
bacteria that's inside this canister and then this chlorinated water is being pumped out into my tank
what you want to do also is make sure you add some prime directly into the canister
granted that if you chose to install a canister empty without water and then fill it directly from
your tank all you have to do is add this prime and stability directly into your tank instead of into
your canister works both ways all right i'm gonna go fill this sucker up and i'll be right back
okay canister's full not all the way to the top because when i put this motor back on i don't want
the water to spill out all over the place so i've got it nearly full to the top and put our top back
on place our hooks underneath and like i said in the previous video you don't want to rely on these
brackets to seal this top what you want to do is physically push down on it on all four corners
and make sure that this top goes on properly feel for the seals i can feel right here
there's a big gap right in front i'm on the table now guys so i want to
i don't want to break this table let me make sure i do this the right way
all right i had to use the floor because i want to make sure i have no mishaps like what happened
last time with this thing flooding but once you push down on it and you know you've got
a good seal all around then you want to go ahead and install your hooks on the bottom
feel all around the gap make sure the gap is good all the way around and your canister is good to go
if you need help figuring out how to install this canister back underneath your tank connecting your
hoses making sure everything is right make sure you go watch part one other than that see ya on
the next one if you're new to african cichlids or you've been considering keeping your very own
i have a great webinar training with the top 3 secrets to successfully keeping african cichlid
and it's free i'll put a link up here and also in the description below be sure to check it out you