Stuck Bio-Wheel

FishKeeper-16

1977 Mustang Cobra
Sep 28, 2004
335
0
0
38
Wheelersburg Ohio, USA
I have been medicating my tank for about a week and I have had a bio-wheel filter in my tank for about a month and I had to remove the carbon cartridge and just let the filter run and now my wheel wont turn and I have followed the trouble shooting and should I just clean it with old aquarium water?
 
when that happened to me, i discovered some java moss in the turbine assembly. Take the filter apart and clean everything. the bio wheles shouldnt need anything besides a wipe down.

You are probably not getting enough water through to spin the wheels, as was the case in my tank. Make sure to seat the filter pads in correctly too, that gave me trouble as well.

good luck on the cleaning, it should do the trick. Reason for using aquarium water is so you dont clorinate everything and kill the good bacteria that has built up on the bio wheel.
 
there's something else I found... the filter paper might not be sitting on the roller properly, and it really slows it down. try and make sure that's not the case- it happened to my bio-wheel and it REALLY slowed it down. After I rearranged the filter paper to sit on the roller perfectly, it works just fine.
 
they say never clean the bio wheel itself and to remove bio wheel when medicating. i have also read when the bio wheel is throughly saturated with good bacteria it will slow down and often not spin, this IS A GOOD THING!!!!!! I only clean out gunk that gets stuck in the impeller joint and in the area where the bio wheel sits, i never have rinsed the wheel itself as the paper that came with the filter instructed not to.
 
I rinse the wheel

I rinse the wheel and give it a good shake under the water leaving the hose from the tank. I figure the junk that falls off would have fallen into the tank otherwise and junked up the water. I suspect the clumps that fall are actually from inside the paper cylinder, collected at the many corners and folds. Be sure to also wipe off the filter housing below the wheels for a lot of bacteria collects there just before dropping into the tank.
 
It says in the instructions it is normal for the wheel to have a a "tick" n stop sometimes - mine used to do it all the time - there seems to be no way to get it to keep it going without interuption
 
used to happen to me all the time - it's very frustrating - i have an aqua clear now - the thing is a monster of a filter i like it much better
 
Have you tried rinsing it?
 
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