canister filter WARNING and experience

I have an eheim canister under my 36 seahorse tank. Just a few minutes ago I was working under the tank and moved it a couple inches. If you know or recall the way the intake works is that the plastic intake piece is in the tank, sucks water down a tube which is attached to a mouth piece on the canister itself. When I budged the filter, the piece of intake tubing popped off the mouth piece of the canister and water started syphoning all over the floor. I immediately pulled the intake out of the water to stop the syphon. I cleaned up, worked to fix the canister and get it running.

The warning part of this. If I hadn't been here it would have syphoned about a foot of saltwater on to my floor. The intake piece of an eheim canister is the slotted intake piece and a J shaped plastic tub that hooks over the back of the tank and down about a foot. My advice and warning is that you should, if you have an eheim, pull the hard plastic J shaped piece all the way up so that the intake is as high up as possible in the water column. This way if for some reason the tubing pops off the canister while your not there the syphon will stop as quickly as possible as the syphon stops as soon as air gets into it. Also, make sure the tubing is locked onto the mouth pieces on the canister as tightly as possible. Mine were not and I almost paid very dearly for it, as if I had not been there and it had popped off I likely would have electrocuted the tank and killed my beloved seahorses.

If you have questions or if what I said is unclear ask,

LCP

 

just a suggestion dont know if it would work since not familar with canister filter but could you just drill a small hole in your j hook just below the water line that way air will stop the suction.

 

Thats an even better idea than mine. Saves a lot of hassle. However you need to make sure the hole wouldn't interfere with the intake. In tanks without sumps that would cause the intake to mess up with just a little bit of evaporation. Definitely could work though if you found the right spot.

 

a couple of zip ties helps to create a good seal with the tubing and pipe.

 

there were no clamps on the tubing?

 

There were but they didn't hold in my case. By the way I made a mistake. It was a marineland canister, not an eheim. Could a moderator possibly change that please? I switched to an eheim and its running much better.

 

I trashed my Eheim, it created more nitrate problems in my system than my bioballs. The flow on it was so slow, it couldn't pick up any free floating debris even it it floated into the suction intake. All it did was develop the nitrate producing slimey gunk in the canister that developed into a ton of algae.

 

I would get rid of the canister filter. IME they cause more problems then they do helping. If i where you id get a HoB aqua clear, and either A put carbon and gfo in it or B turn it into a HoB fuge.