Abby Posted June 6, 2013 Report Share Posted June 6, 2013 (edited) Lesson learned. . .CLEAN YOUR CANISTER PIPES! I noticed last week that my Eheim 2236 Canister was really doing a poor job of filtering (after only a month and a half of operation this surprised me). Water was trickling out of the output spout with barely enough force to push away a few bits of floating plant debris. I took the entire thing apart, cleaned the motor assembly, cleaned the impeller, rinsed the media in bleach (kidding of course! Used tank water), changed out the floss and so on. Plug it all back in, nope . . . still not much force coming out of there. Well, took off the intake pipe and green tubing only to find that I could barely see through it anymore. So I ran a wire brush snake through it and yanked out a LOT of gross brown snot (for lack of a better term). Got the tube all shiny again and reassembled. Voila! The filter is back working as good as the day it was bought. I'm new to canister filters. . .is this a regular occurrence? Will I find myself cleaning these tubes a lot? Any tips? One tip I can share if you are looking for a long wire brush snake that will bend with the tubes, go to a music store. Being a former musician I had a few of these laying around from my trombone (it is supposed to be used to clean the entire length of the inside of a Trombone's slide). It's a fraction of the price of the cleaning wands I saw at the LFS. Cheers gang, Edited June 6, 2013 by Abby Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wingin' It Posted June 6, 2013 Report Share Posted June 6, 2013 Nice lesson! I run canisters on my biggest tank, but I've not had to clean the tubes yet (7 or 8 yrs) though I do notice after I've cleaned the canister and plugged them back in that they spew that nasty brown snot (I like that wording! lol) all over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brenda4 Posted June 6, 2013 Report Share Posted June 6, 2013 I have used cannister filters for some time now and did not like the (brown snot) coming out after start up so i clean the tubes once a month. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abby Posted June 6, 2013 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2013 Nice lesson! I run canisters on my biggest tank, but I've not had to clean the tubes yet (7 or 8 yrs) though I do notice after I've cleaned the canister and plugged them back in that they spew that nasty brown snot (I like that wording! lol) all over. Hmm, now that's a curious response which makes me wonder, what am I doing wrong!? You've been running 7-8 years without needing to clean out the tubes. I've been running a month and a half and had so much buildup that my canister was barely working. This does indeed beg the question, where is this snot coming from? How do I better manage it? And what do I need to change? I do now have two canisters. Maybe it was that I was simply trying to filter too much through one unit? It's the Eheim 2236 which claims to be rated for an 80 gallon tank. My tank is 75 gallon. From this wonderful forum and a few others, I have learned that just because it says it is for X gallon doesn't actually mean that it is enough for X gallon. Hence why I am now running two filters. Still though, a lot of build-up in a short amount of time vs your no (or little) build up over a long period of time. . .hmmm. . .to the interwebs! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wingin' It Posted June 6, 2013 Report Share Posted June 6, 2013 Maybe my fish don't deficate much? LOL. J/K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abby Posted June 6, 2013 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2013 Maybe my fish don't deficate much? LOL. J/K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaykit Posted June 6, 2013 Report Share Posted June 6, 2013 I've cleaned my tubes from time to time. I've found smaller brushes and just attach string or fishing line to the end so that you can pull them trough a couple of times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cgy_Betta_Guy Posted June 7, 2013 Report Share Posted June 7, 2013 just cleaned my fluval 400 series tubes for the first time in 7 yrs... surprisingly there wasnt much accumulation of anything inside even though it is ribbed hosing. This also happens to be one of the canisters on the tank that I only clean every 6 months or so. I have found that the brown snot that gets spit out is actually loose material within the canister filter that is left after you have cleaned/rinsed out sponges. Its probably junk that is stuck in the bio media. If you plug in the canister with everything closed and then slowly increase flow you shouldnt get as much of the junk spitting out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flash_oesc Posted June 7, 2013 Report Share Posted June 7, 2013 Mine always pukes on restart (fluvals, but not Eheims). I've just taken to using a mesh bag, or net over the output when I start it up, catch all the crap within 30 seconds, and then move on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wingin' It Posted June 7, 2013 Report Share Posted June 7, 2013 Maybe my fish don't deficate much? LOL. J/K HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....GOOD TO KNOW! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jewels Posted June 7, 2013 Report Share Posted June 7, 2013 Is this a case of algae in the tubing ? Fluval is opague = no algae Eheim is translucent = algae ? ? Never had an Eheim. Have had algae :poo: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekbottom Posted June 8, 2013 Report Share Posted June 8, 2013 (edited) I don't think it's algae, it's that brown... stuff... that comes out of the tube after cleaning the filter. It comes out of my eheim and fluval filters. Edited June 8, 2013 by creekbottom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
octopusfilled Posted June 10, 2013 Report Share Posted June 10, 2013 Mine always pukes on restart (fluvals, but not Eheims). I've just taken to using a mesh bag, or net over the output when I start it up, catch all the crap within 30 seconds, and then move on That's a radical idea, definitely better than cursing and scooping out the gunk after it goes everywhere. The more you know! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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