How to clean a cannister filter without affecting the crs?

Hi, I've got a 2 ft shrimp tank and a fluval 204 cannister filter. The filter has been used for several months and haven clean it yet. any idea on how to clean or wash the filter without affecting the crs?

normally you only reset ur canister yearly or once every 2 years.

[botakme]

Originally Posted by C_R_S

normally you only reset ur canister yearly or once every 2 years.

Really???

really? then the white wool inside sure very black and smelly!

I thought just lock both valves, remove/change new wool.
rinse jap mat if have, cr, biohome with EXISTING TANK WATER .
of course closed back and self/auto prime.

than should be ok mah.

[EvolutionZ]

i normall just take out everything.. keep the ceramic rings in a tub(i don't rinse them) and wash the filter wool, put back everything and run it..
i wash my filter wool once every 4 or 5 months.

[Hydher]

for me i only rinse the first compartment from the bottom with tank water.

[cheetf]

Think the easiest thing to do is to just change the white wool and pour away the waste. Then refill the canister with tank water and we should be back in business.

Originally Posted by botakme

Really???

Yes i am very sure. Well its up to individual. ARent we talking abt canister .... well im not sure how u guys practice them.

changing often will kill the BB. I have used my canister for years and i only reset once.

[globalcookie]

I just cleaned my 1.5mths old cannister recently. There was quite a lot of stuff in tank that were from some floating plants and it gotten into my cannister.

How I clean was,
- detach cannister
- remove wool (3 layers of wool) and bio-home+,
- clean up the cannister,
- clean up 1st layer of wool
- pour in anti-chlorine, top up water (from tap), pour in some BB solution,
- replace bio-home+ and wool tray

After the clean up, my shrimps are surviving fine. That was about 2 wks ago. One of my CRS has started to recover some of it's white since then (not suggesting that the filter clean up helped).

[globalcookie]

Originally Posted by C_R_S

Yes i am very sure. Well its up to individual. ARent we talking abt canister .... well im not sure how u guys practice them.

changing often will kill the BB. I have used my canister for years and i only reset once.

Cleaning canister doesn't kill all the BB does it? As the others suggested, fill it up with tank water and don't wash the filter medias. But than if your filter is doing fine and your WC is good, maybe you are right too, cleaning it yearly or so. I don't know, to me, if the filter seems to be inefficient, it's time for a clean up.