Damn Filter!

[clairelovestlc]

I came home last night to find my filter had detached itself from the side of my tank, sunk and was resting on the bottom of the tank. ( it had probably only been like this for about 1-2 hours as it was fine when i left the house at lunch time)

It had sucked up pretty much all of the sand off the bottom of my tank, deposited it in the sponges of the filter and had stopped working, I have had this tank running for the best part of a year now and it has never come detached before!!

Anywho i wasn't sure what to do in order to remove that much sand from the sponges and i didn't want to kill all my bacteria. I had only cleaned the filter the day before ( in discarded tank water) so i didnt really want to clean it out too much, but equally i had to get all the sand out.

I scooped up a few jugs of water from the tank into a bucket. Took the filter apart in the bucket and gave it a good swish around and then proceeded to give the sponges a really good clean in the tank water until no more sand came out. This obviously removed a lot of the bacteria from the sponges too and therefore i didnt want to dump the water down the sink. Instead i put the whole lot sand and all back into the tank ( leaving it a lovely murky colour)

I waited for all the sand to settle and then turned the filter back on. within half hour all the goo from the filter that i had squeezed out of the sponges had been sucked back into the filter, the sand was all settled and the tank was Crystal clear again.

The water stats were all fine when i checked it this morning, fish all are active, eating well and acting normally.

I am going to test the water daily for the next week just to check for any spikes. I will start doing do water changes if any of the stats start to move and if things go horribly wrong i will move all of the fish in that tank to my other tank and re cycle this one.

Do you think i went the right way about this?

(BTW i have now put new suction cups on my filter and its stuck on so tightly i cant actually pull it back off so i don't think it will be repeating this stunt any time soon!)

 

[kribensis12]

Yes i think you did. But how long was the filter off? Bacteria can die in about 4 hours with out water being on them.

 

[clairelovestlc]

( it had probably only been like this for about 1-2 hours as it was fine when i left the house at lunch time)

The filter was on and working when i left the house after lunch which i guess was probably about 1:30 and i got in just after 4. Therefore the max time the filter could have been sitting on the bottom of the tank would be 2 and a half hours ( give or take) The chances of this happening just as i left the house is probably very slim so it could be any where in that time frame of when i was out of the house that it stopped working. The filter was fully submerged the whole time so couldn't have dried out.

Cleaning it took me about 20 min, while i was cleaning the actual filter ( impeller etc) i made sure the sponges were floating around in tank water so dont dry out and while i was cleaning the sponges i kept them submerged too.

The filter was only out of the water for a few min max ( time it took me to remove it from the tank, de-tangle the wires from my heater and stuff then dump it in the bucket)

*fingers crossed* i wont get any problems!

 

[Colin_T]

Did you clean the impellor out. Sometimes you get sand wedged in around the impellor and shaft and it can ruin the impellor in a few weeks.

If you are concerned about the tank cycling again then just reduce the feeding for the next week or so. The fish will be fine without food for that time and it will give the filters a chance to recover without having to deal with too much ammonia.

 

[clairelovestlc]

Yes i did, completely took the filter to pieces got my filter dedicated toothbrush out and made sure everything was sand free before i put it back together!

Ta for re-assuring me I'll put my fish on a diet for a few days just to be safe!