coffeebean

i have an aqua-tech 20-40 HOB filter on my 20 gallon tank. whenever i shut the filter off to clean it, even if the darn thing is glistening and pristine when im done, i turn it on and the first water through gives a rush of skanky white/grey bits tiny tiny tiny bits that cloud the water and take hours to clear.

why. WHY? its driving me batty.

agabr123

i'm not sure, but why are you turning the filter off? you can leave it on and just remove the media and rinse it in the old tank water

coffeebean

does it when i do that too. when i push it back in i got a gush of skanky water. i turned it off when i needed to clean the actual filter.

agabr123

hmm, it could be that there is a bunch of waste in the actual intake of the filter, i'd try removing it and cleaning that out very well. if that doesn't work, then try cleaning the inside of the filter itself. do you have sand or gravel as your substrate?

coffeebean

its gravel. i did clean the inside of the filter, not the intake though. duh. though im not sure how it could settle in it...

agabr123

i'm not sure but i'd check it anyways, it could be that some kind of algae has built up in there and when you clean the tank waste is getting caught in the algae

prairielilly

I get that too, it's just the gunk that is settled in various parts of the filter. It doesn't seem to bother the fish and settles pretty quick so I don't worry about it. I turn my filter off too when changing water (actually just shut off the whole power bar) bc after the water line drops to a certain level it starts to grind anyways, and I don't want the heater running out of the water. It's all usually off for 20 min max, no issues.

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