Talk about dirty filters..

[William]

My Penguin 170 on the FW29gal stopped working today.

I couldn't figure out why, it's had diminished flow for a day or so, ut today it completly stopped flowing.


So, first I think theres something wrong with the impeller. Maybe something got in there and snapped it? So I take the filter outside [ Preserved the biowheel, god I love those things. No more worrying about filter media's health ]

Impeller looks good, everything looks good except for a generally thick coat of goop all over the inside. I figure, since its a biowheel filter, it wont hurt to give it a good cleaning.

So I spray out the impeller housing, impeller seat, the overflow chamber. everything.

THen I focus on the intake tube, Oh. My. God! This thing, it wouldn't even allow the high pressure of my backyard hose flow through it!

It was clocked! and when I finally managed to blast out the goop, I found out that the tube, from intake strainer, all the way to where it sits into the impeller, was covered with algae/malm/plantmatter/goop.

The thing was so coated from stem to stern in goop that water couldn't even flow anymore! I got a baseball sized ball of goop out of that intake hose! I couldn' believe it!


Anyways, the filter has been put back to gether, and now its flowing like new. Its churning that water out like no ones business.





The Moral of the story is, Regular Mateinence is an important thing for filters! Something I had to learn today

 

[Andydg]

Wow that IS dirty!!! Guess I should probably check mine soon.

 

[Aqua-Zodica]

Whoa Nelly, makes me wanna run upstairs and check my own filter. 8O

 

[TankGirl]

Whoa Nellie is right! I certainly do check the impeller area but don't tend to scrub out the tubes that often - word to the wise!

 

[Bearfan]

I have a bristle brush on a leader I feed through my intake tube monthly to clean it out...same time I clean the impeller. I guess this is why my 400 is over 10 years old and on it's original parts.

 

[Deitta]

So the moral is... a scrub in time saves a million dimes?
Cleaning mine tonight!

 

[krap101]

how much is a million dimes? 8O thats like 0.10x1,000,000 thats like 100,000$

 

[Deitta]

Well, if you had to replace a filter every couple of years... ok, still not that much.
Unless you include the cost of decreased health, the medications, and deaths... over a 10 year period...
It was just an expression poorly worded.... sigh

 

[TankGirl]

I think it was a clever redux of an old saying, and your point was taken - a little bit of regular effort will save a lot of trouble in the future