New Filter

[alistairw]

I am pretty new to fish keeping and had my first crisis this evening while doing maintenance on my tank. My Fluvial U2 filter broke, no idea why. Unplugged and took out to give a rinse and give the media a quick rinse in some tank water in a bucket. I left everything in the bucket (not the plug!!) while sorting everything else and refilling. When I plugged in...not working.

I went out to Pets at Home and bought a new filter, I upgraded to the U3 rated for 90-150 lt (my tank is a Roma 90 lt 600x310)as I have read on here that a lot of people tend to have a bigger filter than needed. I transfered all the cycled media over.

1: The fish seen to be moving around a lot more, which is partially due to the uprated filter. Have I made a mistake here and its too powerful for them? I have cardinal tetra and a couple of guppies at the moment.

2. The cardinal tetra seem to have lost their colour (mainly the red bellies) which I have never seen before. I have had the light off for a while as I seem to have an algae bloom and having the light off is getting rid of it. I noticed that since the light has been back on, the red colour has come back, so maybe I am panicking over nothing!!

1 extra thing - what happens if you do have a filter break down and there are no shops open to buy a new filter??!! I have taken the other one to bits, cleaned, changed fuse and its still not working, so I am happy I didn't jump the gun buying a new filter!

Hopefully someone can set my mind at rest!

PS, I will be getting an external filter in the next month or so (had a previouse thread about this today!!)so hopefully I will be able to control the flow a little easier!

Thanks for any help given.

Al

Sorry, I seem to have posted it twice and can't delete one of them. Hopefully a moderator can!

Thankyou

 

[delta]

Hi there.

Fish do loose their colour when the lights are off as you've discovered.

I'm pretty certain a U3 should be okay in your tank, you can adjust the flow if you feel it's too strong. I had a U2 in my little dink of a two foot tank which I imagine is smaller than your Roma 90.

When a filter breakdown occurs and you can't get a new one water changes to keep the water good for the fish, and some way to agitate the water surface, like an air stone, I imagine would be the way to go. Plus, of course the ubiquitous water testing kit so you can monitor the levels and take remedial action straight away.

I am now a complete convert to externals BTW

 

[alistairw]

Thanks Delta.

All seems to be ok this morning. I managed to reduce the flow through the middle spray bar so it is coming through half of one set of holes. This still appears to be more powerful than the U2!!

However, the water has never looked clearer do pretty happy overall.......and the cardinals seem to have their colour back!

Definately upgrading to an external as it is a bit of a faff cleaning an internal and at least I will have z backup U3 should anything go wrong!!!

 

[Essjay]

Are you 100% sure the first filter is dead? The reason I ask is that fluval is made by hagen, and several years ago I had a hagen trio filter. That usually would not turn on after a water change, and I've heard of other cases of this with filters made by hagen. I had to remove the pump, hold in under water with the outflow pointing downwards, plug it in then carefully flick the impeller to get it started, then carefully put it back on the filter without giving myself a shower. I was always worried about power cuts when we on holiday because I knew it wouldn't start again by itself.
It's worth trying this in a bucket of water and see if it'll start working again. then you'll have 2 spare filters when you get an external

 

[ZoddyZod]

try tapping the old U2 whilst it is plugged in......my U3 would not start after being switched off, but I found a couple of hard taps would get the impeller going again.

 

[Salam]

I've put my replies under your questions in bold.

1: The fish seen to be moving around a lot more, which is partially due to the uprated filter. Have I made a mistake here and its too powerful for them? I have cardinal tetra and a couple of guppies at the moment.

Guppies love playing in the stream, so you have really done them a favour. You will see them swimming against it for ages.

2. The cardinal tetra seem to have lost their colour (mainly the red bellies) which I have never seen before. I have had the light off for a while as I seem to have an algae bloom and having the light off is getting rid of it. I noticed that since the light has been back on, the red colour has come back, so maybe I am panicking over nothing!!

They do lose colour without light. I think it was Taffy Apple here on the forum who did a 3am water change when he switched on the light at night and thought they were all about to die. It's completely normal.

1 extra thing - what happens if you do have a filter break down and there are no shops open to buy a new filter??!! I have taken the other one to bits, cleaned, changed fuse and its still not working, so I am happy I didn't jump the gun buying a new filter!

I have a spare now. Have a look on ebay, local FB groups or gumtree and see if you can find a cheap and cheerful one. If needed, you just transfer the media to keep it going until you can get to a shop.

I will be getting an external filter in the next month or so (had a previouse thread about this today!!)so hopefully I will be able to control the flow a little easier!

You won't look back, externals are the way to go.

 

[alistairw]

Essjay & Zozzyzod

I thought it was dead, but I shall try both your methods when I get home from work. It would be useful to have a spare filter, so hopefully I can get it working. I am pretty happy with the U3 though, as the water definatly seemed clearer this morning. Hopefully it will still be when I get back from work tonight

Salem, thanks again for your help! You have put my mind at rest about the cardinal's! I did the same thing as Taffy Apple - switched the light on, saw them and thought the lot was about to die! Did and immediate water test on everything and found all was as it should be. I left the light on while I wrote this thread, went nback and all the red had returned to their bellies!

I am quite looking forward to getting the external now, as I can definatly see the benefits it will bring to not only water quality, but ease of maintenence too! I may change the black, rounded gravel i have to a sand substrate too as I like the look of that.

Thanks for your help everyone!!

 

[alistairw]

Checked the tank when I got home and all is well! I was a bit parranoid that the transfer of media wouldn't work, so tested the water:

Ammonia 0.0ppm
Nitrite 0.0ppm
Nitrate 10ppm

All good, so thanks for reassuring me in my crisis (well its one for me anyway!!)

 

[Salam]

That's good news Hope it continues going well for you.