:?: Cleanning canister filter?

[carsimex]

It has bee two moth the 44 g tank has been running on one Cascade 1500 Canister Filter. and about 35-40 lb of LR. I just added AquaC Remora with MaxiJet 1200 pump couple of days ago. My cleaner shrimps one stripe and one fire went nuts, they started to run around and clean everything, including couple of fishes that I have. They were not like this before. Now, I want to go a head and clean the canister filter, but I am not sure how. Should I just change the filter media and wash plastic parts with warm water or should I scrub any debris if present. Also, In my local LFS guy sold me a can of Matrix biomedia, and told me I should put it in the top tray of the filter and remove carbon media. I wanted to leave carbon there and I also read here that bioballs should be removed from filter and this looks like the same thing as bioballs. So it sounds kind of confusing...

Thanks.

 

[Anonymous]

:welcome:

You can change the filter media, or just leave it out completely and only add it if there is trouble - that is if you want the extra circulation the canister provides. In a reef, you really don't need the mechanical filtration unless you clean it very often. The trapped debris rots in the water.
Matrix biomeda should be avoided, it is like bioballs, and fresh carbon is fine to continue running.

It is confusing. Remember you will get 100 opinions for anything in this hobby!