TOP FIN FILTERS

Actually, the impellor area has to be cleaned very well, the more gunk on
it, the less flow. You need the beneficial bacteria on the media
(cartridges). Protect the cartridges with your life! Actually, that's just a
quick humor, you can rinse off the media with tank water to preserve the
beneficial bacteria. NEVER clean your media with tap water, you'll kill your
beneficial bacteria off and start your cycle all over again. (It takes about
45min-1h to clean a h.o.t. filter properly, but it's well worth it, and your
fish will appreciate it.)
The rest of the filter should be scrubbed clean every couple weeks for best
performance. This includes the impellor assembly, and intake tube(and inside
the housing, if you choose, I polish the inside as well because I have lazy
loaches that can't keep up with my snail pop.). You see a filter rated at
400gph, after running in a tank for 3 weeks without cleaning, the debree
will slow it to a meager 100gph or less. Just imagine how slow smaller
filters get after a couple weeks.
There's people I know that clean there tank every 6 weeks, but every week,
they polish their filter, and they have the healthiest fish can be, and tank
looks great.

Cheers, and welcome to the hobby!


"MOO112" <MOO112 DeleteThis @AOL.COM> wrote in message
news:12fd4016.0307040535.536fea9b@posting.google.com...
> You've got me there, no, I havn't cleaned the thing. I thought I read
> somewhere that all the good gook inside was beneficial bacteria. If it
> got too bad, though, I would usually rince some of the stuff off when
> changing the filter. But in my experience, when something electrical
> is not broken but has the rotor mechanisms siezed, I hear a "buzz". I
> might be wrong in this case, so I will try and revive it. But another
> thing I didn't like about the Top Fin 29 gallon pump/filter was that
> it would not start pumping on it's own without being primed. This
> could be disasterous over a weekend if I'm gone and the power goes off
> for a few minutes and comes back on. This is known to happen where I
> live. The 10 would fire back up and start pumping on it's own. The new
> Penguin pump will continue on it's own also if power is lost and
> restored.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Moo
 >> Stay informed about: TOP FIN FILTERS 

Thanks for the advice. Being somewhat new to the hobby, I have much to learn.
And the 10 did come back to life after degunking.

Moo
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In article <fNgNa.35165$ZS3.3322823@news2.telusplanet.net>, jsp RemoveThis @softhome.net
says...
>
>
>I've found that test-tube brushes work perfectly for cleaning out the hole
>where the mag drive is (I can't recall the name either). Alternately you
>could pick up a bottle brush in the babies section of your favourite store,
>but be sure to get the type with bristles sticking out the sides and bottom.

I was just about to say the same thing. I had to do just this to mine tonight.
It would not run at all when I put it back together until I cleaned the
impeller. Your flow will get reduced very quickly by gunk buildup in the
slots where the impeller meets the pickup tube.

Glenn
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