Marineland Emperor 280 Filter Question

Eastside Game

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Dec 14, 2010
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Hello everyone,
Today i set up my 20 gallon high aquarium. However, once i turned on the brand new marineland emperor 280 filter, it started creating a loud vibrating- scratchy sound. I found this part in the box. This is a front and a back view of the part. (Sorry for the crappy quality) moto_0247.jpgmoto_0245.jpg

Is that how this filter normally sounds? or can this sound be the result of this part falling off?

Thank you.

moto_0247.jpg moto_0245.jpg
 
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This may be a dumb question but did you prime the filter?
 
Before you turn it on, remove the lid and fill it with water, and obviously the aquarium must have water in it too.
When water is running out of the filter, turn it on and let it run until the noise goes away. Sometimes that kind of filter need the intake tube tweaked back and forth to make them quieter.
 
oh yea i filled it up with water before i turned it on. i left it running for hours and just now noticed the noise decreased a bit. hopefully it all goes away
 
Did you pull it apart to see if everything looks normal with the impeller?
 
Like ilroost mentioned, that gray clip is used for the biowheel. Looking down at the filter you should see the notches the biowheel sits in and that part should fit in there, unless its a spare. If it's missing, it could cause some of the noise from the biowheel not rotating smoothly.

Something I noticed is that new Emperor filters do tend to be kinda loud, but they should start to quiet down over a few days as it wears in. Something to watch out for is to make sure its not grinding on anything. If you have sand near the intake it could pick it up and make noise from that, if its not running and flowing properly it could have a piece not fitted quite right and that could be making noise.

If the filter is flowing strongly and seems to be smooth, then just give it some time on the noise.

Getting to the impeller that was mentioned involves taking it completely apart, so unless you're having flow problems or feeling like tinkering, I'd just leave it be for now.

Did find a diagram for the 280 with a bit of Googling, so you can identify the parts:
http://www.aquariumpart.com/v/vspfiles/V4_Backup/other_pics/marineland_emperor_diagram.jpg
 
I have 8 Emperors and find them a pain to prime. You need to continuously add water until it comes out the spraybar, wait a few seconds and see if it finishes purging on it's own. For the 280's, water flow will be slow in the beginning but should gradually increase over the remainder of the day.

Once running, I find them to be decent and I toss the cartridges and just use Poly-fil for mechanical filtration. Some have been running continuously for the last 5 years.
 
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