Ok, after reading your emails I made some adjustments; Looks to me there is basically 4 compartments. The first one contains the biowheel and the uptake tube that is supposed to suck up water. Then the top of that tube curves over a wall between the biowheel compartment and whatever filter media you're going to insert in the 2 second compartment. The third compartment is where the impeller is located deep down. There is a physical wall between the biowheel and the media compartment and another physical wall between the media compartment and where the impeller is located. That intake tube curves over the walls and goes down to where the impeller is located. Depending on how hard you press on the intake tube the impeller makes more or less noise and bubbles more or less water. Theoretically the water should bubble so high it goes over the walls and does something with the filter media (there's no real indication of which way the water should flow through the media - I would assume it flows over the media when it comes in and goes down to meet the impeller, the impeller then bubbles it up so that it flows over the walls and down the "ski-slope" platform and back into the water. The intake tube itself is pretty long and goes about 3/4 of the way down into the outside of the tank. There are several sedtions I put all the pieces together (which feel like they leak like crazy) and at some point there is this blue device that acts as an "arm" to open and close the side of the intake tube. Closed, it should increase the pressure and suck more water into the intake tube and make the wheel go faster, open it should lower the pressure- less water would filter in and the wheel would turn slower. It kinda sorta half-assed fits around the rectangular tubing even though it is basically a square object. Just like that little "tail" that sticks up on the Aquaclear to do the same thing, this doesn't work any better LOL. Right now the impeller is strangely silent - it seems like only if I push on the intake tubing does it make any noise or make the water bubble up. So maybe missing a part that connects the tubing to the impeller or does it just sit on top of it?
Second, I put nothing in the media area because when I tried to put their carbon filter inside my fingernails pierced the filter and carbon was going everywhere. Then from the idea about tying up a sponge filter with floss I decided to put the original biobeads in from the aquaclear - since that's where all my bacteria is I figured I might as well not lose it or at least keep it wet. It fits perfectly in that second compartment
This is a real improvement other than one thing - the damn biowheel still doesn't spin. If I push hard on the tubing then the water level rises and starts to get within 1/4" from spinning the wheel (but only if the biobeads are in there taking up space. There is no way that the intake tub is pulling in enough water to make the wheel actually turn - even if I press until I think I'm going to break the impeller, the water level never rises enough to turn the wheel the impeller just makes this horrible grinding noise.
On the intake tube in the water I've tried closing and opening that blue part but it doesn't make any difference.
So what keeps the intake tube fully covering the impeller? They don't feel like they are attached at all so the impeller cannot do it's job without that suction. I took the biobeads out in case they were interferring - with no such luck - I get a higher water level in there as long as they are their taking up the extra space.
