Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fishtank Filtration and Cycling => Topic started by: RachelN76 on October 22, 2014, 08:23:09 AM
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I'm a little confused.
At the weekend, I did a bit of water change and routine maintenance and rinsed my filters in the waste water.
Since I put them back, the ceramic noodle one (an aqua nano 102C apparently) is clogged up and won't let the water through.
This happened before, all working fine, then I decided to rinse it, and it stopped working. That time I thought it was just a coincidence and that it was past it's best, so I changed it. But this one is no where near the 16 weeks that apparently it should last.
Is it just a coincidence, or should I not be rinsing it at all, just leaving it alone? It's just that if I don't rinse it, I would presume that the pad on the front of it would get all clogged up and yucky.
Any and all advice very welcome.
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I tend to sqeeze my filter sponges to clean them and I clean my impeller every week as well because if that gets clogged up the water won't be drawn into the filter. What type of filter do you have?
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It's only a little tank. The Aqua Nano expression and it's the filter that came with it.
So you have (in the order the water goes through it)
Carbon cartridge with a thin layer of white 'wool' built in on top
Ceramic cartridge with think layer of black wool/sponge built in on top
Thick wedge of nylon sponge
Impeller/pump/whatever that's called.
The layers of wool are attached to the actual cartridges, so you can't squeeze them as such, so I give the whole cartridge a rinse, and gently rub the wool layer.
I'll see if I can find pictures.
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This is the ceramic cartridge
http://www.aquarium-parts.co.uk/xpression-17-spares/aqua-one-102c-carbon-and-wool-cartridge.html
This is the carbon cartridge
http://www.aquarium-parts.co.uk/aquamode-600-spares/aqua-one-1c-carbon-and-wool-cartridge.html
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The media is really unlikely to be blocking the filter, it happens, but... The most probable cause for the lack of output from a filter is that you have air inside somewhere. There should be some instructions with your filter for removing air-locks.
But this one is no where near the 16 weeks that apparently it should last.
I'm sorry! What should last 16 weeks? A filter is more likely to last 16 years than 16 weeks; If you have one with a life-expectancy of 16 weeks, take it back!
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I had a similar filter when I bought my tank (I eventually upgraded to a fluval) what I found was that even when you rinsed the wool on the cartiriges there does seem to be a point where the water just wont be able to get through the gunge that builds up on the wool. If you want to stick with that specific filter I'd suggest you change cartridges when the filter output slows down BUT don't replace them all at the same time as the wool will contain a percentage of your filter bacteria.
If the filter casing has a grill I'd suggest you have a look at that because that could become blocked up over time, I know mine did. Hope that helps
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The media is really unlikely to be blocking the filter, it happens, but... The most probable cause for the lack of output from a filter is that you have air inside somewhere. There should be some instructions with your filter for removing air-locks.
But this one is no where near the 16 weeks that apparently it should last.
I'm sorry! What should last 16 weeks? A filter is more likely to last 16 years than 16 weeks; If you have one with a life-expectancy of 16 weeks, take it back!
Sorry, I think I'm probably not using the right terms to explain myself.
I don't mean that the pump part isn't working, or that it would only last 16 weeks. It's the ceramic cartridge that allegedly lasts for 16 weeks.
And the pump is working just fine. In my tank, all the filter stuff (pump, cartridges etc) is in a black box on the back wall. I can tell that this specific cartridge is blocked because the water level behind it has dropped. Then when you lift it up slightly, all the levels go back to normal.