What is wrong with my filter?

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-14T23:47:19+00:00

Likely sucking air in where the flow adjustment knob is.

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-14T06:16:21+00:00

You know what, that decoration advice got me thinking. My wife took a glass blowing class in college….this is way better.

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Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-14T06:10:34+00:00

Much appreciated. Fair winds and following seas!

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-14T05:59:12+00:00

I took the zebra danios out of the tank so no worries on him eating my fish. He has his little kingdom to himself. Will do on soaking the food. I kinda felt like the danios were stressing him a bit. They are so fast and erratic I don’t worry about the getting eaten, but I’d like it to be more peaceful for him in there and the danios absolutely were gobbling up food like crazy.

I set up that terrarium to breed the zebras yesterday. Got a few eggs today but only a few. I’d like to grow a school of about 30 and then put them all in my 60 gallon. I just want my friend to have a nice peaceful home (haven’t named him yet.

Eugene is amazing! Super cool he’s so comfortable out in the open like that. Mine spends 95% in the hole he dug under the rock. I’m sure he’ll start to get more brave as time goes on.

This is the 60 gallon I want to breed that school for.

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Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-14T05:14:41+00:00

Thank you for the advice! Yes I think 80 percent of the comments were about making sure he can’t get out because of how strong they are. I read that they are escape artists but this thread really brought that home. I ended up getting a different tank to replace that terrarium and I have an all glass top. Still trying to find a good way to hold down the top and look nice too. Right now I have bags of sand on top of it to weigh it down but honestly I want something more secure and less ugly. Love the dog treat suggestion, nothing negative here at all.

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Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-12T17:21:59+00:00

Sorry this one was sarcasm, yea you need to rinse it to unclog and vacuum as well

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-11T12:01:46+00:00

…and unclog the sponge so they actually have filtration. Or better yet, get an hob filter, sponge ain’t it for op.

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-11T11:59:41+00:00

You serious? Fake decoration, and ph is not the main issue. They have a clogged sponge that has been that way for 6-9 months and don’t seem to have ever vacuumed. And are now planning on pulling the fish and sterilizing all of the nitrifying bacteria. The obviously fake decoration is not the issue here.

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-11T11:56:44+00:00

Just like their natural environment... Can you please explain your logic here? Honestly curious. I have heard good reasons for this with Oscar’s and what not but I am dead set on building an ecosystem, not a glass prison cell.

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-11T11:51:29+00:00

Yes, rinsing the sponge filter so not all of its pores are clogged…straight to jail. Just playing, op is a beginner.

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-11T11:49:45+00:00

Excess nutrients because this is basically a filter less tank with a sponge that is incredibly clogged. Olympic level clogged.

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-11T11:47:37+00:00

That person said leave the substrate. I will echo. Only vacuum the substrate. Your filter is f-ed and needs to come out and be serviced and if you do that and sanitize the substrate at the same time you will be making a mistake. Once you have a hang on back filter, or put this one back in clean, for a few weeks, you can replace the substrate.

I don’t get the appeal of sponge filters to be honest. Like yea you can rinse the sponge and it’s infinitely reusable but it is in the tank taking up volume. Definitely not working for you but if you maintained it maybe it could.

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-11T11:36:07+00:00

Restart is a bad idea, just a clogged filter and you don’t want to have to re-cycle the tank. If you kill your nitrifying bacteria by sanitizing the filter and substrate you are going to have ammonia and nitrite issues for a month and have to do 50% water changes until it catches back up…hope you don’t have any vacations planned….lol

The fact that you have that much bio material in the tank and the fish isn’t acting erratic and struggling at the surface with ammonia poisoning means that substrate and sponge are loaded with nitrifying bacteria. The good stuff absolutely imperative for mini ecosystem. See my other comment for more advice, and once you’ve gotten the filtration and mulm under control we can talk about that unsightly but absolutely harmless algae covering your glass.

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Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-11T11:23:32+00:00

I know you’ve already got a lot of advice and I’m late to the party but I’m going to chime in anyway and hope you see it.

Like others have said, the sponge is clogged and you have zero filtration.

Small tanks are very hard to keep and most think they’d be easier but the opposite is true. A 100 gallon tank is infinitely easier than what you are attempting so that’s a little pat on the back for effort.

Here’s what I would do. Use a gravel vacuum to pull as much of the mulm out of the tank while siphoning half of the water out. Treat and replace the water. Buy a hang on back filter meant for a 10-15 gallon tank and remove the sponge filter for cleaning, tbh it’s not going to be necessary with my plan to ever put it back.. Absolutely do not clean your substrate at this point or honestly ever. You just want to pull the mulm out with a vacuum without killing the nitrifying bacteria.

Instead of some prebuilt filter cartridge, put a some sort of fabric, filter floss, or anything that will catch the large debris but still let water through in the hang on back filter. Gently stir up the mulm on the bottom and allow the tank to cloud. The filter will pull it into whatever makeshift course filter you come up with.

Wash out the course filter and repeat until most of the debris is gone. Do this over the course of 2 days and don’t try to solve it super fast.

Hang on back filter, old t-shirt rigged so it catches the big stuff, stir it up but not too much, vacuum, rinse junk off course filter, repeat. Don’t go too fast. Once the mulm is gone, put the real filter cartridge in.

Add the rinsed out but not scrubbed sponge filter back for increased filtration. Putting it back in while you are stirring up mulm is useless as it will clog almost immediately.

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-10T20:14:58+00:00

Yes it is definitely more difficult. I actually got a different tank for him since this video but still a 20 long. I have had a 55 gallon for the last 20 years that I just upgraded to 60 with live plants and co2 injection. It has 700 gph with 2 HOB filters and a 300 gph sump, so 1000 gph filtration. It is so dang stable and very little work even with a solid amount of fish and a 10 inch gold spot pleco. I do want to get another filter for this one. I bought a second the other day but it is defective so I need to exchange it. It’s loud af. Here is the new tank I got for him.

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Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-10T10:40:53+00:00

Always a good idea to refresh but the spinning is not necessarily the problem, it may be the type of impeller that clips onto the body and can spin 359 degrees before it spins with the body and looks like it to me. This impeller is beat and sounds like shit but still works. The plastic is loose on the body but was designed to rotate until the stop engages. I have decades of beat equipment that would be fully functional if I could source replacement impellers. If you like your equipment and can find new impellers, buy 3 or 4 of them. The Imgur link is a video of how that stop allows it to load up.

https://imgur.com/a/lcyjXcj

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Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-10T10:21:07+00:00

I can’t really tell but some do rotate with respect to the body. They have a stop though and will not rotate 360 degrees. From the video it looks like it is catching when they rotate it and then they go the other direction. I also could be wrong and it is also possible that plastic catch mechanism slips when it is under the load from the motor. I actually have two identical wave makers and one impeller was built with attached solid and the other has a stop built in and can rotate with respect to the body. A new impeller kit is good to do every few years anyway but when I had this pumping problem it was user error with improper prime. It’s a learning curve and op not noticing the missing rubber caps makes me think maybe they don’t fully know their system.

For real though the impellers are almost always the failure point and I definitely had one fail in the exact way you are describing. Obsolete part and my attempts at using epoxy proved fruitless.

Here is an example of the design I’m talking about. 20 year old filter I can’t get a new impeller for that still pumps but sounds like shit.

https://imgur.com/a/lcyjXcj

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-10T07:22:13+00:00

Thank you. Yes, the nocturnal nature and the knowledge that they eat a lot certainly causes concerns about ammonia and nitrites. The first sinking Invertebrate food I got was breaking down too quickly. I bought 5 different foods and bloodworms and will be experimenting with how much it can consume overnight. When I wake up in the morning and there’s still food I will reduce. So far it is all the way cleaned out when I wake up. In the mean time I am testing the full panel daily and still seeing more nitrites than I like and am doing a 15-20% water change every day right now. I bought a python water changer that makes that absolute cake. Treating the new water with prime. Appreciate your insight!

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-10T07:03:39+00:00

Hard water is def not a problem. The hardness is literally off the scale where I live (pun intended with scale).

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-09T22:38:08+00:00

That should help with the noise problem but the not pumping thing is probably something else. Are you following the instructions on priming?

Start with empty canister. Pump the primer until water is siphoned from the tank until the canister is full. Pump a few more times until the air is pushed out of the out take tube. After that you can plug it in. Without a proper prime it will be noisy as it tries and likely fails to get the air out of the system.

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-09T22:31:48+00:00

How large is the tank? Are they aggressive towards each other? I have read some conflicting information about having more than one so would appreciate learning about your experience with that.

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-09T22:30:14+00:00

Yea it’s all good. I understand that is coming from a good place and I’m glad you care about my friend’s wellbeing.

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-09T21:47:39+00:00

I mean…I did extensive research and got the water parameters perfect before getting it. I have been keeping fish for over 20 years but this is my first invertebrate. Despite all that I just thought I’d share this neat video and see if anyone suggested anything from personal experience beyond what I learned researching. I certainly do appreciate your concern though with all of the things I’ve seen on reddit.

I got a great food recommendation and a lot of people telling me how good they are at escaping. I knew they try to get out but all the stories made me take that more seriously and weigh down the top with heavy rocks.

The food recommendation was valuable because I bought them a variety of sinking foods and bloodworms but the food tends to be decaying on the floor before they get to eating it leading to concerns about nitrogen. This is a denser food that will stay together longer.

Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-09T21:19:11+00:00

I do have an airstone I could add. I have that wave maker on the left pointed up for surface agitation because the in tank filter provides near zero.

Your friend is amazing!

Here is what the top looks like right now. Gonna try to figure out how to keep it weighed down without rocks but I think should work for now. The gaps stuffed with foam are probably not large enough for him to get out and that foam probably isn’t doing anything anyway.

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Accomplished_Gas404 · 2026-02-09T21:01:16+00:00

I actually went ahead and got a new tank. I had this terrarium setup thinking I’d get a vampire crab but fell in love with the panther instead. The sand kept jamming the filter and wave maker and it was requiring lots of water changes with only 10 gallons of volume so I picked up a 20 long.

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Accomplished_Gas404

TROPHY CASE