Advice on Canister Filter leak

cobfreak

cobfreak

AC Members
May 1, 2010
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Cumberland, MD
I've got two Penn Plax canister filters running on my 55 gallon. One's a 700 and one's a 1000. I bought them used. Yesterday I noticed some water beneath the 700, so I cleaned it and re-assembled and put it in a plastic tub. Toda there's water in the tub.

I've narrowed it down so that I am pretty certain that the leak is coming from the point where the output hose screws into the filter. There's a part that I can buy for that, it's a flow control valve. Not very expensive. However, I've always been concerned that the hose is too short there, as it was pre-cut when I got it. So it could be that the length of the hose is not enough and there's a little too much pressure pulling on that join. Not sure. So I could also buy new hoses.

If I buy all of that it'll be about 40 dollars with shipping. A new 700 is about 90 dollars plus shipping, I think. 100 bucks.

I guess my question is - are these good filters? I was thinking I could buy a new one (maybe even slightly better than the 700, another 1000 maybe) and then I'd have the leaking one as a parts spare. The parts are interchangeable, at least some of them, between the 700 and the 1000. But I don't want to buy a new one if there's a better filter I should be spending my money on. And I ALSO don't want to buy parts for the 700 if it's not worth throwing money at, ie. if another part is going to fail soon.

Any thoughts?

Also, anybody have a good lead on where to get parts? I'm looking at http://www.animalworldnetwork.com/ (animal world network?) as that's what googling came up with.
 
hmmm... i might invest in a sunsun (biggest model).

because... i would advise to keep pressure off your connection which means you'd have to buy the hose too.

and... $90 for a 700 is a bit of money considering the hose connections can be tougher than the joint they're connected to... and the sunsun looks as if it has easy disconnects (might want to ask gunner on that)

as well... the difference in price... the one sunsun should cost about as much as your parts for the 700 and 2 more would match the price of your backup... essentially being 3 whole new filters for the price of one and some parts.

at the same time... you should be able to get new hoses at any hardware joint by the foot... which should save you some money...

and... if you have a good grip and are careful taking off your flow control valves during maintenance there's absolutely nothing wrong with cascade canisters.
 
thanks for all the suggestions. I will be looking into that this evening. I also have a Fluval (also used) 305 which I haven't tried. It will be a backup, I don't think i want to run it on this tank unless absolutely necessary. I like the idea of the sunsuns I think. I'll keep the cascade 1000 on there and see about a sunsun. Probably. Like I said, more time for thought on this this evening, but thanks for the input!
 
if the hose it tooooo short and causing strain on the swivel input/output nozzle yea it can make them leak i would invest 3.00 on a new piece of tubing at any hard ware store before spending on a new filter. or you could set the filter on a small platform so it sits higher and stops the strain on your nozzles.
 
Try saveonpets.com I also have a cascade 1500 fliter that I bought used and found the above mentioned website the only one who had all the parts I needed.
 
I have the filter raised just about as far as it'll go, and there's still a leak. However, in part my thought process about the hoses is that I already didn't like how short those hoses were, as it limited how I could position the input and output into the tank. That said, I hadn't thought about buying hoses from a hardware store, so I may look into that.

There doesn't seem to be anything at saveonpets.com. Are you sure that's the site you meant to put?

thanks!
 
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