Two nights ago when I got home, my BH1000 was making just a horrible racket. It sounded like the motor was just grinding on itself. I was frustrated but I didn't have time to deal with it, so I just unplugged it.
Last night when I got home, I took the skimmer off the tank and disconnected the motor to find 4 tiny cerith snails hanging out where the impeller is. Luckily, nothing was broken. I figured out how to take the whole thing apart so I could remove the snails, gave the whole skimmer a good washing, and installed it back on the tank and it's working great again.
However, I looked around the tank and there's still several cerith snails that, if they wanted to, could cause the same problem again. Does anyone have any tricks or mods to keep these little buggers out of the intake pipe? I thought about using a piece of the foam that came with the skimmer, but I threw it away after using it for a couple of days and realizing how nasty it already was and how big of a nitrate farm is was going to become. I thought about cutting a piece of acrylic to fit in there and drilling a ton of small holes in it that the snails couldn't fit through, but I didn't know if that would impede water flow or not. Also thought about some of that plastic mesh used for needle point, but worried about flow and what chemicals are in the plastic that could leech out.
Any ideas? Or should I just accept the fact I may be digging snails out of there occasionally. I would prefer to not have a snail break off part of that impeller if possible...
Last night when I got home, I took the skimmer off the tank and disconnected the motor to find 4 tiny cerith snails hanging out where the impeller is. Luckily, nothing was broken. I figured out how to take the whole thing apart so I could remove the snails, gave the whole skimmer a good washing, and installed it back on the tank and it's working great again.
However, I looked around the tank and there's still several cerith snails that, if they wanted to, could cause the same problem again. Does anyone have any tricks or mods to keep these little buggers out of the intake pipe? I thought about using a piece of the foam that came with the skimmer, but I threw it away after using it for a couple of days and realizing how nasty it already was and how big of a nitrate farm is was going to become. I thought about cutting a piece of acrylic to fit in there and drilling a ton of small holes in it that the snails couldn't fit through, but I didn't know if that would impede water flow or not. Also thought about some of that plastic mesh used for needle point, but worried about flow and what chemicals are in the plastic that could leech out.
Any ideas? Or should I just accept the fact I may be digging snails out of there occasionally. I would prefer to not have a snail break off part of that impeller if possible...
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire