Fluval 2+

[Geoff1991]

When ever i do a water change, after ive filled the tank up. I switch the filter on and nothing. Nothing happens until i open it and poke the impeller in the right direction. It then works fine...

Anyone know why?

 

[mooey65]

My fluval 2 does that to I don't use in any more tho.

 

[saltynay]

I have never had this issue.

 

[Geoff1991]

I may upgrade to an external eventually for better circulation, but if i were to run that along side my 2+ for a few months... Wouldnt i see an ammonia spike?

The only way i can think of it is, that both filters would handle half the ammonia but is this the case? Or will the external be able to handle the load after a couple of months without a problem...?

 

[Andypalf]

My Fluval 3+ has always done it. No idea why but I think it's just part of their design.

 

[Geoff1991]

Oh well, ever since ive had it ive been looking for an excuse to upgrade it... So now i shall, even though theres nothing wrong with it

 

[saltynay]

Are you sure the impellor compartment is clean? Just chuck the mature media from a the 2+ into the external media sponge section and it will be instantly able to handle the tank load (perhaps with a minor fluctuation in stats) and the fluval 2+ can be removed immediately.

 

[Geoff1991]

Yeah i took it all apart and gave it a good clean and nothing...

I was going to upgrade to an external anyway so i could use an external heater and have my tank look as natural as possible without a filter and a heater etc...

Only i was going to wait but now ive gone for it and its being delivered tomorrow.

Thanks for the help.

Edit, the tanks fishless cycling anyway so being able to handle a tank load doesnt matter.

 

[craig855s]

mine has started doing this now.. Although i found the way to solve it initially was to unplug the plug,and re plug it in..repeating if nesecary. (i think the motor just fails to get it going initially due to crap in the impellow)

But just an hour ago i done my tank maintenance and i pulled the impellor out and cleaned it thoroughly (it just pulls out,no catch at all)

Although it is a good excuse to switch to a small external.

 

[h4hapoo]

what size tank do you have? what did you end up ordering for external? just curious because i have a 20 gal and i am not happy with the filter at all (it was a kit) so i am trying to figure out what to get

 

[Geoff1991]

Mines 15G and i went for a tetratec ex600

 

[h4hapoo]

seems to me from my searching i cant get that here in us!

 

[three-fingers]

If you upgrade to an external, the safest thing to do would be to run them together for a few weeks, then put the Fluval 2+'s foams into one of the media baskets in the external, cut them up if need be.

But really...if this is a planted tank, the plants will deal with a the relatively small ammonia spike that would result from changing the filter, worst you would likely see is maybe a bit of algae, if you up the flow rate when you upgrade the filter, this would lessen that chance.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes Geoff, you were correct way back up there. When you share filters ( as 3-fingers has suggested and I agree with by the way) what happens is the colony distribution tends, unevenly, to move toward being evenly distributed across the total biomedia volume. So if you started out with the small internal and added the larger external, eventually the larger media volume of the external would hold a bit more bacteria but it would take a lot of time as its so unequally distributed to begin with.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Geoff1991]

Just an update, i just put a piece of my old media in each tray and carried on with my fishless cycle.