Hi everybody,
New member and first time posting! Greetings to all.
I am having some difficulty with my Cichlid tank. I have a 120 gallon Cichlid aquarium, and it is my pride and joy. I started with 12 fish, but they have been breeding like crazy and I now have over 40 (with 3 pregnant mom's in tow)! I am not up on the latin names for the fish, but I have what I understand to be: Peacocks, Yellow Lavs, Leopards, 1 electric blue and one other that I can't remember the name of, but he is a beautiful blue with black vertical stripes and yellowish tail (he is the king of the tank and lets the rest know it).
Anyhow, back after Christmas I got a new filter system. It is a ProFlex Sump Filter Model 4 rated for up to 210 gallons (Aqueon » Aqueon ProFlex? Modular Sump Filtration | Products). I use the Berlin method. It is a beautiful system, but has 3 cloth bags at the initial intake area where after the water comes down from the overflows and enters the filter box, it passes through these three bags catching all the big junk, then overflows and trickles through my bio-media, then a foam brick and into the main chamber where it is pumped back up into the tank.
For the first month it worked great, and I clean the bags every week, and do water changes every 2 weeks. But I am finding now that the bags do not clean very well anymore, and they are plugging up with filth unbelievably fast. I usually do the cleanings on Sunday afternoons, and it used to be that they were good for a week, but now, by Teusday they are backing up and the water is backing up and flowing over the lip (bypassing the bags) and going straight into the bio-media area.
I am just wondering if anyone else may have this system and know how I can stop this from happening? Or if someone knows a better method for cleaning these types of things? The crap and filth just seems to completely bung up the cloth, and won't come out no matter how hard I scrub at them. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
New member and first time posting! Greetings to all.
I am having some difficulty with my Cichlid tank. I have a 120 gallon Cichlid aquarium, and it is my pride and joy. I started with 12 fish, but they have been breeding like crazy and I now have over 40 (with 3 pregnant mom's in tow)! I am not up on the latin names for the fish, but I have what I understand to be: Peacocks, Yellow Lavs, Leopards, 1 electric blue and one other that I can't remember the name of, but he is a beautiful blue with black vertical stripes and yellowish tail (he is the king of the tank and lets the rest know it).
Anyhow, back after Christmas I got a new filter system. It is a ProFlex Sump Filter Model 4 rated for up to 210 gallons (Aqueon » Aqueon ProFlex? Modular Sump Filtration | Products). I use the Berlin method. It is a beautiful system, but has 3 cloth bags at the initial intake area where after the water comes down from the overflows and enters the filter box, it passes through these three bags catching all the big junk, then overflows and trickles through my bio-media, then a foam brick and into the main chamber where it is pumped back up into the tank.
For the first month it worked great, and I clean the bags every week, and do water changes every 2 weeks. But I am finding now that the bags do not clean very well anymore, and they are plugging up with filth unbelievably fast. I usually do the cleanings on Sunday afternoons, and it used to be that they were good for a week, but now, by Teusday they are backing up and the water is backing up and flowing over the lip (bypassing the bags) and going straight into the bio-media area.
I am just wondering if anyone else may have this system and know how I can stop this from happening? Or if someone knows a better method for cleaning these types of things? The crap and filth just seems to completely bung up the cloth, and won't come out no matter how hard I scrub at them. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
