Update: Killer Maxi-Jet Powerheads!

[RocketSeason]

Why does everything thats bad always happen while you are gone?

I left town for a day, when I came back I found, to my horror, that my Coral Beauty Angel was stuck on the grate of my Maxi-Jet 1200 powerhead! (an example of the grate is shown below)

Correct me if I am wrong, but this design should prevent the suction of the pump to grab a fish. But there it was, My Coral Beauty with half his poor body wrapped around the grate. I turned the Powerhead off and he immediatly swam away to "lick his wounds." Today he is hanging out in a little cave-like area. His coloration is a little dull and he has many tatered wounds in his tail and rear top and bottom fins.

Normally a healty fish wouldn't find themselves in this situation. If he were weak and couldn't swim, he could have gotten stuck, but he is swimming well and was swimming well after he was dislodged last night. I did not see any problems with him before I left town either.

Has anyone had experence with this before?

 

[pearsont74]

what size maxi jet?

 

[RocketSeason]

Maxi-Jet 1200.

I placed my fingers against the grate and couldn't really feel much serious suction at all.

Like it should be.

My Coral Beauty has always picked at the algea growing on the powerhead, he kinda likes swimming through the output stream. never got stuck before though.

 

[Jermz79]

1200 pearsont74

My Coral beauty does fine with my 900, as well as my little O. Clown (maybe a 1/2" long)! The clown will actually swim circles around the intake grate and then fly off into the jet stream and surf the current!

I might have to say that he was weakened prior to getting sucked into the grate? But I can't be sure!

 

[Jermz79]

rocket beat me back to it!!! HaHa

 

[SirLight1337]

Buy some sort of prefilter sponge material and cut a little hole in it to slip over the intake. It will need to be cleaned often but you will never have that problem ever again. I had 2 anemones get eaten by PH. one was a maxi 900 and one a rio 1700 very uncool. and stinky too.

 

[RocketSeason]

I do have a pre-filter for it. Perhaps its time to put that on. I didn't want to do that before because of concerns about nitrate farming.

 

[Dr.Nate]

I had that same thing happen to a flame angel a couple of months ago. Two days later, he was stuck again and died the next day. In my case, however, I am quite sure that he was not feeling well, though, and that's why he got stuck. I hope your Beauty does better!

 

[Gatorfreak]

I can't imagine a healthy fish getting stuck there. I have the exact same MJ1200 and filter screen and the fish aren't even phased by the suction. Even the output isn't too strong for them to swim against.

 

[gilraen]

That's odd, I also have a maxi-jet 1200 and a coral beauty and nothing bad has ever happened...

 

[Kam]

Lost 4 small green chromis the same way. It was not until the 4th one that I saw what was happening. In my case my blue tail damsels would charge after the chromis and they would flee and inadvertently crash into the powerhead and get stuck.

Keep in mind the suction applied to your finger is minimal. Wrap your finger (or two) around the intake and the suction is much stronger.

 

[badfish]

like kam i lost two small green chromis, no match to the suction, to your finger it may not be that bad, but in my case, my chromis were really small. However, they alway hung around the powerheads so i wasnt suprised that it happened. Hope your fish is feeling better.

 

[RocketSeason]

I guess it is possible that he just got to close and his whole body became sucked against it.

He is doing pretty well right now...considering. I think he will survive. We will see.

 

[RocketSeason]

Update: My Coral Beauty never fully recovered, eventually he started loosing his color and after he refused to eat, I knew the inevetable wasn't far off.

Unfortunately, he died the other night. :| It makes me sad that it happened and I have no idea what could have been done to prevent it.

 

[pharmajoeves]

Maybe your fish enjoys the feeling ?

 

[Jason]

My retarded Lawnmower blenny got sucked inside of one of my maxijets. I think he was trying to pick at some algae or something and then got stuck inside the intake.....

I noticed it when the PH was shooting bubbles everywhere...... I thought it was a snail, but it was a fish...... that was about 2.5 weeks ago and he's still perfectly fine.....

He was a healthy fish and he got stuck inside of one.....