Question: Filter fail

[Loveaxolotl]

I bought the filter from the craglist

And the sellter says it work fine

And I spend hours to clean the filter inside

And everything become clean.

Then i put everything back in the order

When i plug in the power of the filter, it seems like the power is not enough
to regulate through the out and in pipe.

And during the wash processing, i actuaaly lose some little size of black rocks( may be some anti-bactria rocks?)from the naylon-bag( little hole in the sufface),because it was hard to keep all of them .

Maybe this is the reason why the water cannot regulate??? Not sure

Anyone would help?

 

[Molch]

the materials in the filter are there to either trap small particles of dirt, or to be colonized by beneficial bacteria which will break down ammonia and nitrite that your axies produce. Carbon is also used sometimes to bind certain organic chemicals, but some people would argue that carbon is of less use in axie tanks anyways.

After you clean a filter, as you did, or start a brand-new one, it can take a few weeks for the bacteria to re-colonze it and for the filter to work at its best.

In order to get the water flowing through the filter when you first plug it in, make sure of the following:

- fill the filter all the way up with water from the tank
- you may have to siphon the input hose in order to get the water flowing. It may run a bit noisy at first but shoul quiet down after all the air is out. If the filter didn't work right at first, it is most likely that there wasn't enough water either in the filter or in the hoses, and the filter had to overcome too much airspace.
- these two actions are what is generally called "priming the filter"

Don't worry about the little black things that came out of one of the bags. I'm guessing those are chunks of carbon? If there was an old, used bag of carbon in the filter, I would just throw it away. You can either use fresh carbon to re-fill your filter, or use other materials. Carbon is not all that useful anyways. You can use filter wool or those little ceramic filter cylinders sold at pet shops, or filter sponges. The purpose of these is to provide surface area to be colonized by "good-guy" bacteria which will break down your axie's poop.

a good way to pack a filter would be (in the direction of the flow of water through the filter):
1st layer: a sponge or thick filter wool to trap larger particles
2nd layer: a material that can be colonozed by good-guy bacteria, like those little ceramic cylinders
3rd layer (optional): some activated carbon to

 

[Loveaxolotl]

Do you think that it was a good idea if i bring the filter to the store if they can check it for me ?

And what it will cost?? I already fill the whole filter with the water, but everything seemed that the power is just not enough to push the water.

And i just have the question, in the bottom surface of the cap of the filter, there is fan in the hole,

I wonder if i can also fill the hole with the water,, but i wonder if that place supposed not to be wet.. or it will cause some serious electric conflict when i plug in the power.

 

[Kaysie]

What kind of filter is this? Can you post pictures?

 

[coral2reef]

Model of the filter or photos would help everyone give you more useful advise.

I recently bought a hydor prime 30 canister filter off eBay for my tropical tank,couldn't get the damn thing to start and was annoyed cos I'd spent like you loads of time cleaning it and getting it nice plus I'd had to shell out for all the media and new hoses. The guy I bought it off kept assuring me it worked but as it's an old model I couldn't find much useful on the Internet. Last attempt at getting it going resulted in water all over the floor, mouthfuls of tank water (yuck!) and a fair bit of swearing - finally got it going by manually siphoning and pouring water into the hoses and dancing round with the tubes. Still really don't know what made it suddenly start working as it certainly wasn't powerful enough to get itself going (and this was auto prime apparently) so do persevere and give us more details

Ps - not sure I'm ever going to stop mine to clean it haha

 

[coral2reef]

(thank god my axie tank has a flucal 305 canister filter, so easy to start!)