n3il
New Member
Hello Guys/Gals,
Have had my tank up and running for almost 2 years now so everything is nice and stable and happy. I have an EX1200 on my tank which is a 110L Fluval, so it is a bit overkill but I gather from reading this most excellent forum that that isnt a bad thing. So yeah, particles in the water, pretty much all the time, I cannot determine what they are, they just dont seem to get filtered out. I cleaned out the whole tank 15 November, spraybar, pickup, tubes, glass, sand, and a full filter clean. And today there are still loads of little particles floating about.
My EX1200 when opened up for cleaning after say 4-5 weeks, has a moderate amount of brown sludge in the bottom but the ceramic beads and filter foam seem to have nothing "in them", squeezing them out in a fresh bucket of tank water produces next to nothing. this is the same right up until the final basket where I have a activated carbon sachet and a load of filter floss. This seems to catch a fair amount of particulates and is noticeably tainted. I have play sand as my substrate and have noted that around the intake tube on the top basket there is a load of sand build up. Now this is unlikely to have made its way down the tube through all the baskets and then all the way back up through the foam and filter floss to finally settle round this tube. This has concerned me for a while now as it seems that the sand (and probably a portion of everything else) is managing to bypass the tube down to the bottom of the filter and is just being sucked straight back out of the top basket by the filter head. I have spent much time cleaning and making sure the baskets are properly aligned both inside and outside the filter body. So I am confident that it isnt a simple case of the baskets not making a good seal. I also believe this is why I have a load of particulates floating round in my tank 24/7.
Or is it just me, is crystal clear, particulate free water asking too much?
Any advise or comments are appreciated.
N3il
Have had my tank up and running for almost 2 years now so everything is nice and stable and happy. I have an EX1200 on my tank which is a 110L Fluval, so it is a bit overkill but I gather from reading this most excellent forum that that isnt a bad thing. So yeah, particles in the water, pretty much all the time, I cannot determine what they are, they just dont seem to get filtered out. I cleaned out the whole tank 15 November, spraybar, pickup, tubes, glass, sand, and a full filter clean. And today there are still loads of little particles floating about.
My EX1200 when opened up for cleaning after say 4-5 weeks, has a moderate amount of brown sludge in the bottom but the ceramic beads and filter foam seem to have nothing "in them", squeezing them out in a fresh bucket of tank water produces next to nothing. this is the same right up until the final basket where I have a activated carbon sachet and a load of filter floss. This seems to catch a fair amount of particulates and is noticeably tainted. I have play sand as my substrate and have noted that around the intake tube on the top basket there is a load of sand build up. Now this is unlikely to have made its way down the tube through all the baskets and then all the way back up through the foam and filter floss to finally settle round this tube. This has concerned me for a while now as it seems that the sand (and probably a portion of everything else) is managing to bypass the tube down to the bottom of the filter and is just being sucked straight back out of the top basket by the filter head. I have spent much time cleaning and making sure the baskets are properly aligned both inside and outside the filter body. So I am confident that it isnt a simple case of the baskets not making a good seal. I also believe this is why I have a load of particulates floating round in my tank 24/7.
Or is it just me, is crystal clear, particulate free water asking too much?
Any advise or comments are appreciated.
N3il
