Rena XP2 Impeller Mishap

[sophiecat22]

I just recently did some maintenance on a tank that I set up for a neighbor. He has a Rena XP2, which I recommended to him because I have one and have loved it and had no problem with it up until now. Anyways, he called me up and said that his filter wasn't working at all after a recent power failure. He said that it didn't come back on after the power came back on. So I went over and took a look. Everything appeared to be normal until I removed the pump housing and the cover for the impeller and found the impeller stuck in the cover. I also noticed that I could hear water inside the pump housing when I moved it around so I shook it a little and when I did this, water began to trickle out around the power cord. OH GREAT!

So I called Aqua. Pharm. and the tech treated me like I didn't know the difference between a filter and an air pump and when I told him that there was water coming out of the pump housing he tried to tell me that "when the canister is opened its normal for a little bit of water to come off of the the lid." LOL... I pretty much had to spell it out for him that the water was coming out from the power cord, from inside the P-U-M-P H-O-U-S-I-N-G not from inside the canister.

When this wonderful example of a human being finally grasped what I was telling him, he actually got snotty with me and tried to tell me that I "probably installed the tubes wrong." He then told me what I already knew; that the pump is burned out and that the impeller being stuck the cover isn't normal :wall: and then told me that he couldn't do anything for me until I send the filter to them so that someone can look at it and tell me that I need to buy a new filter. Whatever, I work at Petsmart (I know, I know....) I can just take it in to work with me and get another one no questions asked...

Now here's the kicker, my neighbor had his filter for 6, maybe 8 months. I've had my filter up and running for a little over a year with no problems until tonight. I took the canister apart to do my regular maintenance to find my impeller jammed into the the cover just like my neighbor's. So I shook the housing around a little and guess what? Yep, you guessed it, water came trickling out around the cord...oohhhh goody!

Now I'm actually wondering if its even worth the time to get another Rena...or two more now that mine's kicked the bucket....

What do you guys think??


By the way....sorry for the novel, but once I started typing I just had to vent... Thanks so much for listening...er...reading...

 

[galen]

huh. years ago i had an xp2 myself for about 9 months. it ran fine and did a great job. perhaps the quality has fallen off over the years?

 

[Cory Keeper]

sounds like the impeller got stuck, as a DC motor runs after a long period of time without the rotary part moving, things start magnetizing in ways they shouldn't, It then gets to the point where it won't work anymore. Not sure why it did that though.

 

[sophiecat22]

Something's definitly not right. They're still confident in their filters though, the tech even told me that they don't give out the return number thingies that the manual says you're supposed to request before returning a product to them because they don't get enough returns to actually have a need for the numbers. I have a feeling that's going to change though as we've had a couple filstars returned to Petsmart in the past few months and now this.

What I'm really upset about is the fact that the people at Aquarium Pharm. were extremely unwilling to help me at all and were very defensive of their product.

Cory Keeper....which parts of the impeller become magnetized in a way they shouldn't? And how does one go about preventing such a thing from happening. If there is a way to prevent this from happening in another filstar then I"ll definitly get another one as it did a great job cleaning the tank.

Although, I did noticed a strange film with little white specks in it on the top of the water which showed up a couple months ago. Could that have been a sign of an impeller gone bad?

 

[beviking]

Who cleaned the filters? lol I have 4 XPs running, the oldest is near 7yrs and never had an impeller problem. That's a very odd thing to have it happen to both of you! Hmm?
As for the water in the housing, that's not uncommon. When you disconnect the hoses, there is some pressure in the canister which pushes a little water out, which ends up in the housing. The power cord hole is the lowest point for the water to exit other than the space around the disconnect holes and that little triangle hole on top. If it's a few drips, maybe a short stream then drips, no worry. If it keeps going and going then there is a seal problem on the quick disconnect which is most commonly caused by the hoses being too short...which is what Mr. Snooty was trying to say The motor is fully enclosed so it will work even if there is water in there. When you service the filter, just shake out what you can.