slow biowheel!!

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kmlong

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
May 27, 2004
Messages
121
Location
Lancaster, Pa
Just lately my biowheel has gone from spinning nicely to barely spinning at all. It does go around but it seems caught up and nothing is there to slow it down. I take it off and it spins freely on the axis, put it back in and it goes slow. The water flow is the same and the cartridge is not clogged. I do notice what i think may be brown algae on the wheel. Whatever it is seems to be weighing it down causing the slowing. Will it hurt if I brush the pleats off in old water? Would the bacteria on the wheel actually be visible? I don't want to mistake the brown algae for what is actually bacteria. Any advice would be appreciated. thanks
 
The bacteria can accumulate to be visible, rinse the wheel in old water. Another thing to try is to cut down the cartridge behind the wheel. I had to do that for all my biowheels. I cut down the plastic and the sponge to the box area and the wheels are doing fine!
 
A rinse in old tank water would not hurt....and be sure that the notches that the wheel's axel sits in are 100% free of detritus, too.
 
What kind of filter is it? The Emperors have a spray bar that keeps the wheels spinning, and if they are turned too far over they do not hit the wheels, and they don't spin as much.
 
a problem that could be happening is that you're accumulating a significant amount of bacterial growth toward the center of the biowheel. That would result in more leverage being needed to rotate the wheel on it's axis. And since your biowheels fins aren't getting any longer and the output of your filter isn't increasing, the speed of the wheel will decrease. If you notice growth throughout the fans on the biowheel, you could remove some of the colonies (bacterial growth) from the axial portion of the biowheel and that would rev up your biowheel a bit. Just make sure you don't remove too high a % of bacteria or you'll end up having to partially recycle your tank. If you're worried this may happen, I would try adding some lava rock or similar to your filter to increase your surface area for bacteria and after you notice some growth, then cut down on the biowheel's axial portion of bacteria.
 
I think as long as it stays wet and even if very slowly it still rotates, you should be fine. If it was totally stuck in one spot then I'd be worried.

But if its really that bad, rinse it off in some aquarium water.. cant hurt

-Dan
 
Sometimes my bio-wheel rubs against the filter cartridge and I have to slide the cartridge up or down or just move it so the bio-wheel can spin. You could try that.
 
If it's a pengiun make sure the blue retaining clips are there!!!!!!!!!!

If you don't know what these are, and you have a pengiun, then ask me more, lol.

HTH, Joshua...
 
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