penguin150 with bio-wheel

[ilovebillwillia]

does anyone have one of these? i have 4 tanks, two with these, no problems with the others, all have same substrate (half sand half gravel) the penguins keep completely stopping! i just pull out and re set the intake and it starts again. maybe sand, but the other filters dont do this. only had them about two weeks. was annoying but i thought it would go away. today i was gone about six hours, came home to a horrible smelling tank and dry biowheel. does this mean complete recycle or will the biowheel "regenerate" once wet? i romoved the fish to other tanks, did an 80% water change. tank is running again. by the way the ammonia reading before water change was dark brown off the chart and after a few minutes turned thick milky white....gross...i feel so bad...fish are doing ok now though in other tanks...sorry so long but should i return the filters as defective or does this sometimes happen....anyone have experience with this type of filter? *SICK*

 

[Orion]

Sounds like it could be the sand. You could try cutting the intake tube to make it shorter and get it away from the bottom.

I have one on a 20 tank with multies and they dig constantly. The intakes are over half way up the tank and I have not had this problem in this tank.

I could be a faulty filter as well. If it would make you feel better, you could try to return it first, and if the new one does the same thing, then cut the intake tube.

 

[ilovebillwillia]

ty for responding and quickly. im going to my lfs today ill asked them if i can watch it for maybe a week more (ill be home almost constantly this week) and if i have more probs take it back.
what do i do about the dry biowheel? am i starting from scratch?

 

[Lotus]

The bacteria on the biowheel are probably dead if it is dry, but there will be bacteria in other parts of your tank, that should be able to keep up with the bioload. Have you checked the electrical connection to the outlet on this filter? I know we have a couple of tanks hooked up, and the connection is a little sensitive, our cats go and disconnect it occasionally. It could just be a bad filter.

 

[frying nemo]

Yes...I have had the same problems with my penguin 150 with bio wheel..it kept shutting off. I would replace everything perfect. It would work about 5 hours and then quit. So i took it back and got an aquaclear..I heard they are far more reliable and come with a lifetime warrantee.

 

[culinaryartcook]

Does anyone know how to make the flow slow down a little? Mine's got this massive output that I want to tone down some b/c it's shaking pu the water surface a good bit and I've got co2 running and that's making it escape easier. Any ideas?

 

[ilovebillwillia]

there should be a "knob" on the top right where the intake goes to where the filter is. turn that. it will actually come out so you can see what shape it is. ( i take mine out when i clean the filter, to get down the pipe) half is open half closed, turn to adjust as needed.

 

[ilovebillwillia]

by the way i kept mine, put a black input sponge on it its been fine since. apparently it was the sand.

 

[frying nemo]

So, if I would have gotton just striaght big gravel I would have had this problem??

 

[culinaryartcook]

No knob on the biowheel. I know what you're talking about, there's one on my topfin 30, but not on this biowheel. Is there a lever or smething that can cut down on the intake or anything?

 

[ilovebillwillia]

sorry, i looked at the topfin, not sure on other

 

[ilovebillwillia]

spoke too soon. came home tonight. filters running, biowheel not moving, completely dry.....i need a filter i dont have to constantly worry about. this one is cr@p.

 

[culinaryartcook]

Hm... I don't know about you guys but my filter seems to have way to much flow going to stop that wheel. It's flying, glad it's got a splash guard or it would be flinging it on my light. Thought I've heard of this problem a lot though.

 

[ilovebillwillia]

its like the wheel is just barely touching the water flow. according to the manual, there were supposed to be bearings for the wheel assembly, but mine had none and i really dont see any room for any. the "axil" the wheel is on, the ends fit in the slots, doesnt look like theres room for bearings on the axil.
( sorry about the word axil, dont know if its proper but dont know whatelse to call it...lol)

 

[twoluvcats]

have you pulled the impeller and cleaned it? I have a p170 and the stopping thing happened to me once...i took the filter apart (while floating the bio-wheel) powerwashed the impeller and cleaned out the whole box very well...so far 'knocks on tank' the stopping has not happened again. I also have sand substrate.

 

[raseii]

If you bio-wheel does not have those little blue axils on the end of it, then it will not spin right. I lost one of my blue things when I was cleaning it, so I took the other one off and it stopped spinning. I had to put them back on. Look under the lid and there should be extra blue axil things under there (hopefully) if you bought it new. I have 3 pegiun bio-wheels and the smaller ones that use those blue axil things have the extras in the lid.

 

[ilovebillwillia]

yes cleaned impeller, intake, etc...called customer service today "jason" said i needed to read my manual, that it says right in there the bio wheel is supposed to stop. it may stop days at a time, but that it takes an extremely long time to actually dry out to the point of harming the bacteria. he says he has one on his desk at work that turns maybe two rotations per week. then he continued to tell me that most all people that call have absolutely no understanding of bacteria, cycling, etc... by the way all the manual says is if the biowheel stops, clean axil, look for blockage, make sure all parts installed properly,examine intake,perform reg. maintanence. i told him about the pump itself stopping because of a grain of sand and he said yep thats all it would take, what did i expect, thats natural. cust. serv. 1-800-322-1266
he sucked...

 

[ilovebillwillia]

company says theres nothing wrong, wont replace, bought a whisper (my other two have never been a prob.) tossing the biowheel in the cabinet for emergencies only, ill never trust them again.