Batting not holding waste

Hi, I have a canister filter with 3 trays, batting at the bottom and top of each tray but recently the waste is floating in the water, so I added an extra piece at the bottom tray, but when I clean the waste comes out with the water and no need to clean the sponges, am I doing something wrong? Pics of what I use.

 

Your batting is too coarse.

 

Maybe the batting is a little bit course/ compact as @Nico Hamman says...

But Something tells me and this is a gut feeling that there is more to it

You say you have batting bottom and top of "each' of the 3 trays....
So.. correct me if i am wrong.. you have
Batting
Media
Batting

Batting
media
batting

as well as the 3rd tray?

Is this not too much batting and you actually impairing the flow through the canister
If i understand correctly you have a total of 6 layers of batting?

Unless im misunderstanding you,I have never seen a canister packed that way...

Some pictures maybe?

 

@MariaS , yes you are correct. How must the sequence be, I have 3 trays

 

I even added an extra layer at the bottom of the last tray to catch waste but the waste is sitting in the water under the bottom tray.

 

I do not use batting in a canister - unless you like opening it up every week or two and risk snapping something. If you need to then add an open sell sponge filter on the intake pipe - that will catch particles and is easy to clean.

Similar to what you can do on a HOB see https://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/threads/pimp-your-hob.6952/

For water polishing I find a HOB works raterwell with all the batting stuffed in that.

Later Ferdie

 

Most canisters work from the bottom up, meaning that course filtration occurs first, followed by medium, and then fine filtration or polishing at the top.
In my 4 basket canister filters I do the following starting from the bottom:
Course sponge, together with a medium sponge in basket 1.
Seachem Matrix in baskets 2 and 3.
A packet of filter wool in basket 4.

I also use a sponge filter on the intake pipe to catch course dirt.
This sponge is removed once a week and cleaned by squishing it under running water in the sink.

 

@Pezulu has given the reply which i agree
However, there could be other reasons for the problem
What size is the tank and what fish do you have
Could it be that the fish have grown and the canister isnt coping anymore?

I would start off by packing the canister as @Pezulu explained and see what happens

Post some pictures of the tank and a little bit more details and see if there is anything else we pick up that could be part of the problem

 

Thanks for the advice guys. I have put in an open cell sponge on the intake, coarse batting at the bottom tray with ceramics and fine on top, 2nd tray no batting at all but ceramics, top tray matrix, purigen and ceramics with fine batting. Its a 3 foot 220 litre which is over stocked with goldies.

 

Ok,

I hope it helps.. hopefully at least for a while but Im not sure.....

An overstocked 3ft with goldies that are growing all time, thats big bioload....
I hope not but, i think that unfortunately its going to crash in the near future unless you upgrade the tank and filtration and possibly reduce stocking levels

 

Here is some excellent guidelines on how to setup an external canister filter by Podguru.

Note on the use of different types of media, first coarse, then medium and lastly fine to polish the water.

 

I think the layout is impeding the working of your filter.