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Deleted member 55926
Guest
OK, I am having problems with my Fluval 3+ in that it is getting clogged I think and the flow of water through it is dropping massively. This is causing huge nitrite spikes in my tank, and all manner of problems with the fish.
I have the standard filter pads either side, and then in between I have 2 pieces of media from someone else's tank that I initially used to try to speed up cycling (didn't work at all).
Filter Opened in Half
If I have the central media too close to the top, what happens is that the flow becomes very weak within a matter of hours.
There are two ways I have tried to solve this problem. Firstly, moving the top piece (ripped) down about an inch, to allow some free space. This allows the water to flow through more. However, if I move it down too far, I also get nitrite spikes because the bacteria aren't close enough to the flow. Secondly, early on I tried cleaning the media out but obviously this got rid of some of the bacteria and again caused nitrite spikes.
As far as I can tell, most people don't really clean their media much at all and don't have problems with it getting blocked as such. It's like my filter needs unblocking twice a day. A few hours later the output will then be down to about a 3rd of its full power again. We are not talking any large debris in the media, it's literally just the standard brown sludge.
It's as if the flow of water through the filter is concentrated all at the top, and I don't know if this is a design flaw. The rest of the media is pretty much spotless, and it doesn't seem like the water flows through the entire length of the filter. I think my problems might be solved if I could remove the central media, which is quite dense, to allow a good open space of free-flowing water in the centre of the filter. Obviously I can't do this though, because the central ripped piece is very dirty and contains most of the bacteria.
I can tell when the filter isn't pumping out water efficiently because I have the air valve open and instead of a steady flourish of bubbles, they splutter out faintly.
I really need to sort this out, as I'm going on holiday for about 9 days on Friday and am worried I'm going to come back to a tank of dead fish. I already lost one neon, have another one near the surface, have a new dwarf gourami who instantly got sick, another danio on the way out, and the rest of the fish gasping. I came home from work yesterday and the nitrite had spiked to 1.0+ during the day due to the flow of the filter dropping to very weak. I did a massive water change and cleaned the filter pads AGAIN and this morning the flow is back to very weak (I assume the nitrite spiked again over night) and I was late to work having had to clean the pads again.
If anybody has any pics of what their filter pads look like inside, and how often you clean your filter, that would help a lot.
I have the standard filter pads either side, and then in between I have 2 pieces of media from someone else's tank that I initially used to try to speed up cycling (didn't work at all).
Filter Opened in Half
If I have the central media too close to the top, what happens is that the flow becomes very weak within a matter of hours.
There are two ways I have tried to solve this problem. Firstly, moving the top piece (ripped) down about an inch, to allow some free space. This allows the water to flow through more. However, if I move it down too far, I also get nitrite spikes because the bacteria aren't close enough to the flow. Secondly, early on I tried cleaning the media out but obviously this got rid of some of the bacteria and again caused nitrite spikes.
As far as I can tell, most people don't really clean their media much at all and don't have problems with it getting blocked as such. It's like my filter needs unblocking twice a day. A few hours later the output will then be down to about a 3rd of its full power again. We are not talking any large debris in the media, it's literally just the standard brown sludge.
It's as if the flow of water through the filter is concentrated all at the top, and I don't know if this is a design flaw. The rest of the media is pretty much spotless, and it doesn't seem like the water flows through the entire length of the filter. I think my problems might be solved if I could remove the central media, which is quite dense, to allow a good open space of free-flowing water in the centre of the filter. Obviously I can't do this though, because the central ripped piece is very dirty and contains most of the bacteria.
I can tell when the filter isn't pumping out water efficiently because I have the air valve open and instead of a steady flourish of bubbles, they splutter out faintly.
I really need to sort this out, as I'm going on holiday for about 9 days on Friday and am worried I'm going to come back to a tank of dead fish. I already lost one neon, have another one near the surface, have a new dwarf gourami who instantly got sick, another danio on the way out, and the rest of the fish gasping. I came home from work yesterday and the nitrite had spiked to 1.0+ during the day due to the flow of the filter dropping to very weak. I did a massive water change and cleaned the filter pads AGAIN and this morning the flow is back to very weak (I assume the nitrite spiked again over night) and I was late to work having had to clean the pads again.
If anybody has any pics of what their filter pads look like inside, and how often you clean your filter, that would help a lot.
