AquaClear HOB Filter Basket

[dmcnamara]

This may have been discussed on the forum at some point, but I am trying to troubleshoot the issue of the baskets in my AquaClear HOB power filters occasionally rising, pushing the lid off, and (sometimes) causing water to overflow along the back of the filter.



Thought I try to rinse my filter media every 1-2 weeks with cycled aquarium water, it seems as though gunk still manages to form at the bottom of the filter media compartment, including under the sponge and the basket. It is my understanding that this can block the flow of water that gets forced under the basket, so that it can't matriculate up through the sponge and flow and other media and flow back into the tank as intended.



Based on this, I was wondering if the basket is really necessary, as this is what seems to be the real source of the problem. Though there still may be some excess particulate caught under the sponge, I don't think it is likely that it would impede the water flow so significantly as the grate on the basket does due to the relatively small stamped cutouts.



Has anyone given this a try / does this logic make sense? If not, would you be willing to share your methods of resolving this problem if you've encountered the same issue?



Thank you!

 

[Kame]

The basket is not necessary, you could definitely just fill it with media.
I would suggest try using a pre-filter on your intake and seeing if that helps.
Also make sure you have that little black plastic riser piece that levels the filter against the glass.

 

[Kenobyte]

I can say in my aquaclear 30 the basket has a pretty tight fit, when the sponge, matrix ( from a cycled tank so held onto their unused media), and polyfill for me are in it won't budge for me and is kinda tough to pull out. You can definitely just do media with a prefilter sponge. I did a prefilter plus the setup above when I had fry so they didn't get sucked in and the combo led to super clear water.

 

[ColdKoi]

Gotta say the same here. Using an ac70 on my comet tank and the basket literally takes force to pull out. I wonder if there’s something defective with yours.

But to answer your question, you can run without the basket but that will greatly hinder the flow through the unit it the lower sponge sits directly at the bottom. The basket holds the lower sponge slightly off the bottom to allow water to flow from the pump on the side, along the bottom then up through the media. If the bottom sponge sat flat on the bottom, your effective area is reduced to the surface area on the side of the sponge which would clog pretty fast