Help! Fx6s blowing brown water

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Willcav123

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Hello I currently have a 125gallon tank that’s been running for a year and a half. I have two fx6s on the tank. The other day the water started to get cloudy and brown like the filters were dirty which I had cleaned about 3 months prior. I shut them down and opened them up and they were not that dirty. So I closed them and fired them back up which blew a huge cloud of brown waste into the tank. I immediately did a big water change and then when I turned the filters on again same thing big brown plumes of waste. I’ve double checked my inlet and outlet plumbing on both and the hoses are attached correctly. Any advice on what could be causing this? Since then about a week ago the water starts to look greenish/yellow and cloudy within a day or two of water changes. The tank is not near a window or direct sunlight and before it started turning colors. My water was 0 ammonia, 20ppm nitrates, 0 nitrite, and ph of around 7.8. I do 50 percent water changes a week. Temp is set to 80. I’ve not done anything different than I usually do so I have no idea what’s causing this. I feed them 1 a day 5 days a week and no more than what they can eat in 3-5min. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you
 

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I have had this happen before. I determined that it isn’t bad, just unsightly. I believe it is some sort of biofilm that grows in the hoses. I guess you could try cleaning the hoses? I’ve never really been that bothered by it, but I get that it’s unsightly.
 

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Yeah, it’s gunk coming from the hoses that flushes out every time you restart the filter. You can use a nylon hose at the end of your outlets to collect it when you turn it back on.
 
  • Thread Starter
  • #4
Yeah, it’s gunk coming from the hoses that flushes out every time you restart the filter. You can use a nylon hose at the end of your outlets to collect it when you turn it back on.
Click to expand...
Wouldn’t there be bigger chucks of debris? This stuff is fine as if it is being blown out of the canister. I’ve noticed today that both filters have shut off and then back on as if they are trying to purge air yet no air getting into and no power issue since everything else is working fine. I’ve confirmed that water is being pushed each time in between purges which is weird. Feel like if it’s been doing that that the hoses would have been cleaned out already.

IMG_6011.jpegIMG_6012.jpeg

This is what the water looks like 2 days after the water change. No driftwood in the tank so not tannins
 
Wouldn’t there be bigger chucks of debris? This stuff is fine as if it is being blown out of the canister. I’ve noticed today that both filters have shut off and then back on as if they are trying to purge air yet no air getting into and no power issue since everything else is working fine. I’ve confirmed that water is being pushed each time in between purges which is weird. Feel like if it’s been doing that that the hoses would have been cleaned out already.
Click to expand...
Run your filter in two buckets, one with clean water and one to collect dirty water. Do it until there is no more of it. If it keeps coming after 10 minutes, there is something wrong.
 
Wouldn’t there be bigger chucks of debris? This stuff is fine as if it is being blown out of the canister. I’ve noticed today that both filters have shut off and then back on as if they are trying to purge air yet no air getting into and no power issue since everything else is working fine. I’ve confirmed that water is being pushed each time in between purges which is weird. Feel like if it’s been doing that that the hoses would have been cleaned out already.

View attachment 931824View attachment 931825

This is what the water looks like 2 days after the water change. No driftwood in the tank so not tannins
Click to expand...

I think there are two parts to this. The typical sewer-ish particles blown out of a filter after an intervention. Happens to anyone.

And the haziness, which has two typical causes:
- dissolved organics hosting microbes which scatter the light, typical of heavily stocked tanks
- suspended sediments (silt, clay, dust)

Tannins don't cause haziness, but only tint the water. Blackwater tanks are typically very tinted and yet super clear.
 

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  • #7
Ok well sounds like I gotta do a deep clean of filters/hoses down to impeller cleaning and such and hoses. Will do that. I’m glad I went with two fx6s so that I can do one while the other is running then swap vice versa. Is a week in between cleaning each filter sufficient?
 
I've never had this issue but it make sense it could be the gunk in hoses.

My fx6 has 6 years of continous use (minus down time to clean it once every 18 or 24 months).
 
Time for maintenance sponges might be saturated. Plus, those hoses hold a lot of gunk.
 
Those flex hoses hold a ton of besides reducing potential flow.
I believe they are metric sized but I would be looking to replace them with a smooth hose.
All my sumps came with flex hose and they were my first modification.
You could also just start up the filter with the return in a bucket so you don't shoot the water into the tank.
 
I used a filter bag on startup on the output nozzle but replacing the hoses is a good idea. I still have some on my overflows to the sump, but the outputs are all smooth hoses.
 
A week apart is plenty. The point of staggering them is not disturbing both bacterial colonies at once, and that only really matters if you're replacing media rather than rinsing it. Rinse the sponges and bio media in old tank water and keep them wet while they're out, and you shouldn't see ammonia move at all.
 
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