I have a 30 gallon tank, and a Tetra Whisper EX 45 filter, said to be able to handle 45 gallons. Normally I change filter pads every couple of months, cutting out a square of the old filter floss to help kick start a new bacteria colony. Recently I've noticed that every time I turn the filter back on after a water change the filter spews out enough fish waste to re-dirty the tank and make it appear as though I've done no cleaning at all!
I put in a new filter pad about two weeks ago after giving the filter a good cleaning (I was hoping cleaning it and a new filter pad would make it better. I cut out a 2x2 or so square of filter floss from the gross old filter cartridge and put that on the back of the new one, so that the new pad would stop it's contents from getting into the tank. This didn't work as well as I had hoped but it was better than previously....
I unplugged the filter do to the water change today and gunk came out of the intake. So I grabbed the filter and took it to the laundry sink and when I opened it, the two week old filter cartridge looks like it's 6 months old! It's completely black from from top to bottom with waste. (It's doing it's job I know, but it shouldn't be letting excess waste escape, especially in such noticeable amounts. I've had the unit for 6-9 months)
My tank is nowhere near over stocked,
3 Honey gourami
1 Zebra danio
5 Panda Corys
1 BNP
I honestly don't know what do to.
I have some excess filter floss which I;m going to add to the filter in the hopes that it will help catch ecxess waste before it spews out the front of the filter into the water, but even if that helps the floss will get saturated with waste and eventually spew more waste into the tank when I turn it off too, and I'll just have twice the mess to clean up.
I'm to the point of just buying a new filter because this one is ruining my tank with it's inability to do its job.
Does anyone have any advice on why this is happening or anything else i can do to try and fix it? I am at my wits end with this contraption!!
I put in a new filter pad about two weeks ago after giving the filter a good cleaning (I was hoping cleaning it and a new filter pad would make it better. I cut out a 2x2 or so square of filter floss from the gross old filter cartridge and put that on the back of the new one, so that the new pad would stop it's contents from getting into the tank. This didn't work as well as I had hoped but it was better than previously....
I unplugged the filter do to the water change today and gunk came out of the intake. So I grabbed the filter and took it to the laundry sink and when I opened it, the two week old filter cartridge looks like it's 6 months old! It's completely black from from top to bottom with waste. (It's doing it's job I know, but it shouldn't be letting excess waste escape, especially in such noticeable amounts. I've had the unit for 6-9 months)
My tank is nowhere near over stocked,
3 Honey gourami
1 Zebra danio
5 Panda Corys
1 BNP
I honestly don't know what do to.
I have some excess filter floss which I;m going to add to the filter in the hopes that it will help catch ecxess waste before it spews out the front of the filter into the water, but even if that helps the floss will get saturated with waste and eventually spew more waste into the tank when I turn it off too, and I'll just have twice the mess to clean up.
I'm to the point of just buying a new filter because this one is ruining my tank with it's inability to do its job.
Does anyone have any advice on why this is happening or anything else i can do to try and fix it? I am at my wits end with this contraption!!
