Tetra Power Filters---overflowing, help!

rae3988

Hey all,

I have a ten gallon tank for my Goldfish and I've been using a tetra whisper power filter (medium) for filtration. I've had no problems with it until recently. Once the cartridges are old, the water flow through them is very poor, and the water actually bubbles over and flows out of the tank. This happened the other day, so I got a new cartridge. WIthin ONE day, it started to happen again.

I don't really know what to do, and I"m sorry if this is too vague. Any suggestions?

meegosh

Is there any other filter media in the filter other than your cartridge? If so, try rinsing it with tank water. When is the last time you cleaned it? If its overflowing something is clogged. How does the flow out look? Weaker than normal?

P.S. - This is probably in the wrong category so it'll get moved.

rae3988

Yeah, I wasn't sure where to post this.

I rinse off the cartridge any time it seems that the water flow isn't going so smoothly, but it didn't seem to make a difference. It's not that the flow is weaker, but that the water heading into the filter (see water going in on my bad diagram below) instead of smoothly going in and out of the filter, starts to bubble up. I assume that means the filter is getting clogged, but if I'm still cleaning/rinsing the cartridges and such off, why would it do this? Usually it took a lot longer than a day to start bubbling.


water going in--->||||filter||||--->water going out

herefishy

Time for a new filter pad.

Flashygrrl

Is the flow set high enough to get the water through? One thing I noticed about my whispers is that they really tend to "slow down" as they get older. Try cleaning the impeller and see if that helps (you need to turn off the filter to do this so clean quick).

herefishy

Slowing down would not cause overflow or bypassing of the filter pad. The pad is dirty and clogged replace it.

Oldman47

The whisper filters have 2 filters in them. There is the throw away cartridge with a microscopic amount of carbon inside that we have all dealt with. There is also a thin sponge looking thing between the cartridge and where the water goes back to the tank. My guess is the spongy thing has gotten plugged up. Take it out and rinse it out well in old tank water and all should be well.