Powerhead blues

1202 Views 4 Replies 3 Participants Last post by Steve Pituch, Jul 7, 2004

skinns

Discussion Starter · Jul 7, 2004

I bought a small aquaclear powerhead and so far it has taken 2.5 lives. The first tragedy was my potbelly little goldfish looking guy, which I found in the adpater that fits on the intake. He fit perfectly inside it. Didn't even relize he was gone till I decided to clean it.

Then I decided to take off that adapter and let it run with out it, till I found my snails shell stuck to it.

This morning, I found my Dwarf frog pinned in between the glass and the powerhead intake. Didn't relized that his little arm was in stuck in the intake. Pulled him out and saw his little black and blue arm, trickling with a drop of blood. As soon as I freed him, he was unable to swim in straight line, exhausted and no hovering at the surface, ...... I now have my girlfriend on "FROG WATCH" and she called me in said she can't take it...

Does anybody else have similiar powerhead problems?

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Steve Pituch

· #2 · Jul 7, 2004

I don't know how the Aquaclear powerhead looks but I use foam to distribute the suction on intakes a lot. Last thing I did was I bought a piece of foam that fits inside a cannister filter and trimmed it into a long rectangle. I put a slit in it and put it on the intake tube of my Fluval 204, replacing the strainer. I was afraid my Endler's babies would get sucked into the filter through the large strainer holes. Works great.

Steve Pituch

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skinns

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jul 7, 2004

This is the one that I have.

The bottom little dome part of it, is where the frogs arm and snail have been found.

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Corigan

· #4 · Jul 7, 2004

I had an 802 that I nicknamed "The Powerhead of Doom". It took a dwarf african frog's life as well as some extremely small jellybean tetras (about 5 to be exact..

I tried all sorts of different things with sponge pre-filters and such. Aquaclear does sell a quickfilter that is a big cylinder tube that connects to the bottom and evens out the suction rate to over the length of the tube. This might help. Only thing I didn't like about it was that this tube is about 6 inches long, and it is big.

I sold my 802 to someone on aquabid that houses big salt water fish and picked up some small powerheads (the 10 and 20 from aquaclear). Haven't had a problem with these little dinky ones. Every once in awhile I find MTS' stuck to em, but who cares, they are a dime a dozen. I always wondered on mine if the fish had just died before they got sucked to the powerhead. Suprised to hear that one (being the least powerful of all) is causing you problems.

Matt

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Steve Pituch

· #5 · Jul 7, 2004

Just rubber band a piece of foam to the bottom of the pump. You might want to make a little hollow for the bump where the intake is.

The sponge prefilter they make would work very well.

Steve Pituch

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