Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fish Tanks and Equipment => Topic started by: Aquamaid on December 11, 2014, 04:12:50 PM
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Remember i'm a newbie and please don't laugh at question :-[ lol This is my first experience of external filter, when i started it up, it said "prime the canister" and i had to suck on the pipe to get the flow started (pump button stuck) i'm now wondering, when i turn everything off for water changes, will have to go through the same procedure every time :-\
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what brand of external filter do you have - your filter will need to be primed when you do maintance to it some are pain to prime useing the self priming system others work great , depending how you have your system set up there is pipe set ups that allow you to open a valve and pour water down the pipes to prime them that way https://www.eheim.com/en_GB/products/accessories/installation_installationsSets_4004310 (https://www.eheim.com/en_GB/products/accessories/installation_installationsSets_4004310)
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Hi Chris, it's a Aqua One Aquis 1250, it does give the two options of "pumping primer button" or "sucking pipe" for set up, the pump button was too stiff to pump, (it's second hand set up) so i did the suck pipe method, which was no problem as it was just water at that stage lol. All running fine, just wondered if i have to do that every time i change water, or if the water level is not to low do i need to turn it off at all?
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Bering in mind that I don't have externals, I think that if the pipe that takes the water out of the tank will be underwater all the time during a water change, you can leave the filter on. The dangerous thing for both externals and internals is having the impeller going round when there is no water round it.
But you will need to turn it off and prime it whenever you clean the filter.
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sue is right as long as your pipe stays well below the water surface level you will be ok to leave it running during a water change.
i have the same filter but in the smaller 750 version there actualy a fairly nice filter and one of the more easier i have found for self priming , odd that yours is so stiff althow its normally only the first little bit of the push that is stiffer then once the button is moveing it feels easier to push if yours isnt moving at all it maybe jammed with something i will take a look at mine the weekend and see if i can see anything obvious that could be at fault.
A little trick i do with one of my eheim filters (which is a pain to prime ) is after a clean to siphon water out of the tank and into the filter attach the lid and start it up but there is two problems with this
1 is you have to fill the filter right up so always end up squirting some water out when putting the top on
and second is if the water has flowed slightly out of the pipes then it can draw the air in from them.
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Thanks Sue and Chris, Mmm it's a bit of scary equiptment at the mo, but i'd like to master it before i get any fish in so maybe i should have a go at undoing it again, (rather not lol) How often do you reckon it will want cleaning Chris, or does that vary according to tank occupants and conditions?
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It will vary on what fish how much food etc but I would say aproxmeatly 4 to 6 weeks.
I like external filters and even run a external on my 60 liter tank .
one thing I would advise is to always keep a spare impeller especially as these arent the most easiest to get spares for quickly.
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Does this brand of filter have ceramic or metal impeller shafts? I know from experience that ceramic shafts do break. If you do have a ceramic shaft, I'd keep spares of that too.
(The impeller is the thing that looks like a torpedo; it sits on a thin spike, the shaft, in order to spin. It's that spike that can break if it ceramic)
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Right, well i better get one ordered then : )