Frustrated with Aqua Clear HOB Filters

[gwand]

I returned from being away for seven days. I noticed that one of my aqua clear filters was not running. Then I realized there had been a power outage; the clocks were off. My generator should have kicked in. It turns out I was out of propane. Stupid me! My neighbor told me the power outage was no more than 20 seconds. How frustrating that the aqua clear filter motor did not restart. Luckily I suffered no losses of fish. It’s strange that my three other aqua clear filters on other tanks were able to restart.

 

[GaryE]

Sometimes they do that. I had a power glitch over night last week. One aquaclear and one maxi-jet powerhead needed manual restarts - while 6 aquaclears started themselves back up.

 

[gwand]

Had the power outage occurred at the beginning of my 7 day absence this could have been a disaster. I will never leave home for any extended period without checking my propane reserves. My bad.

 

[MaloK]

Habitually, they have more difficulty restarting when they have the time to cool off...

You might want to give it a good cleanup and lubrication.

 

[Fishmanic]

You might want to add an air powered sponge filter should the aquaclear not start up after a power failure.

 

[gwand]

You might want to add an air powered sponge filter should the aquaclear not start up after a power failure.

I have an air powered sponge in the tank. It probably saved me from catastrophe!

 

[Fishmanic]

Also you can transfer the sponge filter to a quarantine/hospital tank should need arise.

 

[Magnum Man]

I have 2 AC -70's in reserve, I no longer use them... I've made the switch to Tidal's, if nothing else, because of how I do water changes... I have had one Tidal not restart, ( it was full of fine sand that got sucked into the longer / deeper draw tube ) but otherwise they have always restarted... but it was getting to be every week during water changes for the Aqua Clear filters...

 

[gwand]

I’m going to replace the defective filter with a Tidal.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Clean the impeller and impeller well regularly and the ACs should be more reliable. Also live plants in tanks help when we can have them in a tank. Not all my tanks have them. The tanks without them also have some amount of air powered filtration as well as ACs.

It also help if one uses a pre-filter on the AC intake. I prefer to use 10 ppi Poret foam for making my pre-filters.

 

[MaloK]

The only time I had problems with AC not restarting, is when I put too much lubricant...

When it's fresh, silicone base lubricant can stick when cold. The problem goes away after a while... But in the first days after a tune-up. If it stop and cool off too much, they might not restart.

I also have a coarse intake sponge too, and that is really the impeller saver.

I have to stop it every week at least to clean the mechanical filter and more... Up too 6 month since last tune-up, always restarts on it's own...

They are a little difficult and love to run the pump very clean. All the years I used these filters, when they started to act, was because of me not doing it 100% right.

 

[gwand]

I have 4 AC filters running now. I would like a system requiring less weekly maintenance. I have three cheap Tetra filters on other tanks that never act out.

 

[anewbie]

I was never a fan of aquaclear mostly do to current but also on restart sometime it needs to be primed (well mine did); these days i mostly use sponges with a large air pump - easy to run tubing around the room - for larger aquariums (up to 100 gallons) i have matten filters for 20 long and smaller I use cube sponges. Of course if the air pump fails or the tubing comes undone (which can happen as it ages in water) ....

 

[tiggerfish]

Is there a power hang on back filter that doesn’t need priming after a power outage?

 

[sharkweek178]

This sometimes happens to me after I unplug mine to do water changes.