Help!

[Pugwinkle]

We had a bit of a disaster here a few minutes ago. Thank heavens we were at home and were able to nip it in the bud.

We have a 65 gallon tank with an Aquaclear 300 filter which is only about 5 months old. We have two sponges in the filter.

Here is what happened. We heard the tank making a lot of noise and went to over to the tank to find that the carpet and floor below the tank were saturated with water. I looked quickly at the filter and the sponges and the sponge holder were sticking up right out of the filter causing the water to fall down behind the filter onto the floor.

What in the world would have caused this to happen?????

We had been planning to do a water change today because the water level was down by about 5 gallons from the top. Do you think the water level being down could have had any bearing on what happened??

We are very worried that this might happen again when we are not at home and would like to know how to ensure it does not ever happen again.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

 

[fishdude07]

isnt there a top on the filter that would keep the sponges from sticking out?

 

[Pugwinkle]

sure but that just popped right off

 

[Lotus]

Have you checked and cleaned the impeller? Are the sponges full of gunk?

 

[Pugwinkle]

I checked the impeller but it didn't really look very dirty. I rinsed out the sponges but they weren't full of gunk either.

 

[Nutfarm]

This could be a stupid question, but it's happened to me before.

I'm not familiar with your filter per say, but on an old skilter I have there's an adjustable tab on the bottom to hold it away from the tank. In the past mine's collapsed. That put the filter on an angle allowing water to seep out the back.

It's worth taking a look, and it's the only thing I can think of that hasn't been covered already.

 

[Pugwinkle]

Originally posted by Nutfarm
This could be a stupid question, but it's happened to me before.

I'm not familiar with your filter per say, but on an old skilter I have there's an adjustable tab on the bottom to hold it away from the tank. In the past mine's collapsed. That put the filter on an angle allowing water to seep out the back.

It's worth taking a look, and it's the only thing I can think of that hasn't been covered already.

I'll check that thanks!