Hi, we are newbie fish keepers and need some urgent advice! We moved into our new house 3 months ago and the old owners kindly left us their tank, Malawi Cichlids and all the equipment. They left some instructions on how to care for the fish and mentioned that every three months or so we need to rinse out the filter in water from the tank.
Today we tried to do this but we're finding it impossible to remove the top from the filter unit. I rang the old owners earlier and spoke to the wife who rang me back with advice from her husband. He first said that he used to use a spatula to break the suction, he also said another way to do this would be to remove one of the pipes. It then transpired that the Aquamanta filter is new (they bought it 6-8 weeks before we moved in) so I don't think he ever actually had to clean this one out. The old one was an EHEIM 3 which they left as a spare.
We had to get the Aquamanta out of the cupboard just to undo all four of the catches so, as the hoses weren't long enough for this, we had to remove both of them. However, once we got it out of the cupboard and all four latches opened, we still couldn't get the top off. There isn't a manual here for it (they didn't mention having one). I'll ring the manufacturers tomorrow to see if I can get one but in the meantime, can anyone give us any advice on how to get the top off? Is there a knack? Or is there something simple we're not doing? Also, is there a cleaner way of removing the pipes? I'm still mopping up water!
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Once last thing, will the fish be ok temporarily with no filter on?
Thanks in anticipation.
Today we tried to do this but we're finding it impossible to remove the top from the filter unit. I rang the old owners earlier and spoke to the wife who rang me back with advice from her husband. He first said that he used to use a spatula to break the suction, he also said another way to do this would be to remove one of the pipes. It then transpired that the Aquamanta filter is new (they bought it 6-8 weeks before we moved in) so I don't think he ever actually had to clean this one out. The old one was an EHEIM 3 which they left as a spare.
We had to get the Aquamanta out of the cupboard just to undo all four of the catches so, as the hoses weren't long enough for this, we had to remove both of them. However, once we got it out of the cupboard and all four latches opened, we still couldn't get the top off. There isn't a manual here for it (they didn't mention having one). I'll ring the manufacturers tomorrow to see if I can get one but in the meantime, can anyone give us any advice on how to get the top off? Is there a knack? Or is there something simple we're not doing? Also, is there a cleaner way of removing the pipes? I'm still mopping up water!
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Once last thing, will the fish be ok temporarily with no filter on?
Thanks in anticipation.
