Xy 2822 Sponge Filter Noise

Greetings,

I'm back at the moment... been traveling but all has been well with my fishy friends... and thought I'd bounce a non-critical question out there.

I've been using the the xY 2822 sponge filters for quite a while and I love them, even putting up with the terrible suction cups. I like the simplicity, the way they work and that they are good match for my tanks, especially those with lots of little shrimpies.

What I don't like is how they will suddenly go into "blurp blurp slurp glurp blurp blurp slurp glurp blurp" mode, usually at 2 AM (jokingly) and once (seriously) at 3:15 AM, exactly one hour after my smoke alarm decided to let me know that it wanted a new battery.

Usually I can adjust add water to fix it or adjust the level of the filter output.

Sometimes I can fix it by removing one filter (of two) and clean it squeezing it in a bucket turning clean aquarium water into really nasty water in 0.2 seconds. (Cleaning half is another benefit to keep the biological filtration going.)

I'm just wondering if anyone has experimented to find solutions for the noise ?

Could my air pump be too large? Or too small?

I was even wondering about putting a tube on the end that the end floats to keep the output level "perfect".

Anyhow, any input would be appreciated.

Cheerios!

(p.s. I am going back on the road the day after posting this so my apologies if I am unable to respond in a respectable time.)

 

What size pump are you using?

 

What size pump are you using?

That is a perfectly good and valid question.

(Trying to activate the little gray cells....)

I believe each is using a "40 gallon" pump. I know that I've never purchased anything smaller than a "20 gallon" pump.

 

Try putting either a splitter on the line or a smaller pump. I used to use the tiniest air pumps to run up to 4 or 5 of those filters. You need more tanks!

 

Try putting either a splitter on the line or a smaller pump. I used to use the tiniest air pumps to run up to 4 or 5 of those filters. You need more tanks!

After acknowledging my MTS having six tanks, I went to counseling for six weeks that cost gobs of money and ended up with eight tanks. It took me two years to get back down to six, all full of plants and under stocked to make maintenance easier.

Seriously, maybe I have too much air.

( DON'T SAY ANYTHING !!! )

In the past, I used to run multiple filters off a single pump but didn't like that because they had to be frequently rebalanced as restriction changed for some odd reason. I used the common metal / chrome air splitters with control valves.

( Okay, I heard that about my air. )

Perhaps an experiment is in order to reduce the air flow and see how that affects the blurp blurp blurp glurp....

 

Another option is to get a flow adjuster for each line and dial it up or down.

 

Another option is to get a flow adjuster for each line and dial it up or down.

Well, I just tried reducing the air flow for the current bluper and it did reduce the blurping but it also reduced water flow quite a bit.

Putting on my thinking hat...

Before posting, I did search other threads and found one that suggested adding an air stone to break up the bubbles. Now a stone will not fit inside the tube but what if I were to reduce the opening...

( Okay, thinking hat blew off. Must be too much air! )

Thanks for the thoughts!

 

I've seen that suggestion but unfortunately I've never been able to figure out how to fit an airstone in one of these.

 

I've seen that suggestion but unfortunately I've never been able to figure out how to fit an airstone in one of these.

Idea!

Maybe a coarse sponge !?

Cut it and put it in the tube....

Nevermind. Just tried it at the top and blurp blurp blurp returned.

It seems that the level at the top makes more difference than anything. I may try the output tube idea when I get back from the next trip.

Thanks again for the discussion... It does help to hash things out in the middle of a brain blizzard, I mean brainstorm.