Fluval Edge 2 - AquaClear Power Filter 20 Dead in 3 mo.?

[mlolm]

Hi all,

I'm still a bit new to the hobby, but recently got a second tank. The fluval edge 2. It has a side mounted AquaClear Power Filter 20. The whole setup is about 3 months old. We have pretty hard water here where I live, maybe its gunked up. I took it out yesterday and had a look. The impeller is spinning, albeit not with alot of gusto.

It kind of seems the seal betweein the intake shaft and the impeller is not good. The suction i'm getting is very weak, i'm not sure if thats because the RPMs on the impeller are lower than when it was new, or if the seal between impeller and intake tube is bad. After reading around, it seems people have alot of problems with this filter.

Right now water is trickling out of the filter, I have a colony of freshwater shrimp and some fish. They seem to be OK for the moment but its been like this for awhile now. I will try taking it apart now and see if i can fix it, any other suggestions? I'm worried this filter might be a lemon and require constant breakdown and re-assembly? To be clear, my corner filter on the nanocube tank I have has been great. So its not as if the water is killing all filters, maybe its just that this filter design sucks big time?

 

[Ch4rlie]

Not sure, but have you cleaned the impeller and the impeller housing?

A lot of gunk can collect in there and around the impeller itself, that does slow down the impeller as you describe. Using a small but unused toothbrush is a good little cleaning tool for that as well as a very small pipe cleaner type of thing.

I clean the impeller and housing on my tank filters on a fairly regular basis for this very reason, to keep good water flow and filtration going.

 

[mlolm]

Gotcha, i will try that now. Here is a video in the meantime just to show what i'm working with here:

 

[Ch4rlie]

Vid does not work, its set on private.

 

[mlolm]

OK its public now, try now. I just cleaned it (after that video, btw). Some sludge came out. I cleaned the impeller shaft magnet and the shaft housing with a que tip. The flow is a little bit more, but still not a full flow by any means.

 

[Ch4rlie]

What about the sponge filter media?

Give some of that (not the whole lot if possible) a rinse in old tank water to get rid of acculumated gunk in the sponge which would restrict water flow.

 

[concentration]

Hi all,

I'm still a bit new to the hobby, but recently got a second tank. The fluval edge 2. It has a side mounted AquaClear Power Filter 20. The whole setup is about 3 months old. We have pretty hard water here where I live, maybe its gunked up. I took it out yesterday and had a look. The impeller is spinning, albeit not with alot of gusto.

It kind of seems the seal betweein the intake shaft and the impeller is not good. The suction i'm getting is very weak, i'm not sure if thats because the RPMs on the impeller are lower than when it was new, or if the seal between impeller and intake tube is bad. After reading around, it seems people have alot of problems with this filter.

Right now water is trickling out of the filter, I have a colony of freshwater shrimp and some fish. They seem to be OK for the moment but its been like this for awhile now. I will try taking it apart now and see if i can fix it, any other suggestions? I'm worried this filter might be a lemon and require constant breakdown and re-assembly? To be clear, my corner filter on the nanocube tank I have has been great. So its not as if the water is killing all filters, maybe its just that this filter design sucks big time?

Hi you can try type in aqua clear power filter cleaning under YouTube and you can refer to some cleaning video, some maybe helpful

On the other hand mostly it's the motor part that causes the slow flow.

Other than taking it out and clean it , do your best to clean the motor and the fan , even a slight dirt in those may slow it down.

Of course there is no way to make it as good as you have it first time l.

Finally before you turn it on , make sure you already fill up the filter with water before you turn it up , sometime it helps

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[mlolm]

I cleaned everything as clean as possible, the filter still is trickling out. I guess it could be a bad filter?

 

[concentration]

I cleaned everything as clean as possible, the filter still is trickling out. I guess it could be a bad filter?

I don't know I mean I have try several brand and some of them do have dramatic decrease in water flow , it's more like a design problem I believe, I never tried yours so I am not sure but I will stick with it and if it's really not good enough than I will try another brand

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk