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I want to clean it but it seems near impossible to take off, any tips or tricks to make this easier? Thanks.

I remember a few people soaking it in warm water to help loosen it.

If you mean the end that attaches to the intake and outflow tubes, I never take it off (it's on really tight). I detach the tubing from the other end (it comes off after some twisting while pulling) and clean it by pushing a flexible brush up to the plastic pieces (intake and outflow) and pulling it back a few times, then running water through the tubing to rinse it off.

Thanks for the replies.

How would you go about reaching the intake/outflow ends when just removing one end? My brush is only about 18" long at most.

Was planning to maybe hook the end to a clothes hangar wire, not sure if it'd work though, just a thought.

Sad e - Do the best you can with the brush and fill the others up with a bleach solution and let the soak. Make darn sure tha you get all the bleach out at it will kill your next batch of bacteria that your are trying to cultivate.

sai_dee, I used a small brush with a long flexibe handle (you can get them at many aquarium shops) until the brush came off of it. I then tied the brush to a cord/thin rope and pushed it in one end up to the inflow/outflow ends with a wooden dowel (which I got at Walmart). I pulled the brush out and pushed it back to the other ends again, pulled, and repeated until the gunk inside had been removed. Then I just ran water through the tubes to rinse them. Any brush (just the brush, no handle), as long as it's small enough to fit in the tubing but big enough to rub against the sides would do.

we change our but we just buy new tubing and cut if off the canister

I know the tubing doesn't cost that much (I got new tubing at big al's for $3.99), but over time doesn't that get a little expensive? It seems the money could be put toward other things (unless you have money to burn ).

we get ours at lowes or home depot its cheaper there for more

Last summer I took my XP3 apart and cleaned the tubes. I just took off the clamps that held them in place and pulled the tubes off the platic parts. To clean them, I pushed wadded up pieces of paper towel through the tubes with a tomato plant stake. I was very relieved to find that it was a lot easier to put the tubes back on that it had been to get them on in the first time because apparently the rubber had stretched some.