Emporer 400 making alot of noise

[Brownsnoutuk]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

The Emperors new clothes.

[eklikewhoa]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

Why would you want to lube it?....maybe I shouldn't ask?  8O

[NDsuperduty]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

Why would you want to lube it?....maybe I shouldn't ask?  8O

haha, funny.   Maybe it will help with the noise until the slim builds back up, assuming the impellar does not need to be replaced.

[eklikewhoa]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

I really doubt that....

Silicone paste I believe is aquarium safe.

[Hanson77]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

The problem is that now that it's making noise, it is progressively going to get worse.  Silicone or whatever other kind of lube you can find may help for awhile but if the impeller shaft is shot, it's just a matter if time.  The problem is that it will freeze up when it gets to a certain point and won't spin.  You then have to pull the inlet tube with impeller attached up out of the mag well to reset it.  It's a big pain in the butt at 2:00am, which is when mine would always do it for some reason.  All the trouble that you are going to go through trying to put a bandaid on the issue can be fixed if you just replace the impeller.  Then you can use some sort of sponge over your inlet to prevent the sand from travelling up the inlet tube.

[ImaGuyGeek]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

We have sand in all of our tanks. I would go to a canister filter. They work really well for us. It sounds like your impeller and you will continue to have to replace these over time. This is just part of using sand, especially if you get the girrafe cat which will stir up the sand, much like ours do.

Hope this helps.

210G - Frontosa
150G - Various Africans
125G - TBD
100G - South Americans
75G - Tropheus Duboisi 'Maswa'
75G - Tropheus Moorii
55G - Baby Tank - currently Frontosa
29G - Backup/Hospital
550G Pond - Koi

[J-WS6]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

I say dump the Emperor and save the future hastle with noise and replacing/resealing parts. I've always used Aquaclear 500's (now 110's) on all my tanks and they've worked wonders. A bit pricey at LFS, but cheaper on ebay. You can rinse the sponge every water change and not have to go to the store to buy new filter cartridges, the flow rate is awesome, you can take the impeller out of the reservoir just like the emperor and their really quiet. I have 2 on the 2 tanks in my bedroom and I can hardly hear them over a normal fan. Back when I first started working at Ultimate Fish, Alex put two of these on a cloudy 300 and within hours it was clear. I've attached an image for the sake of this thread, to show the wide, waterfall like flow the Aquaclear produces.

[CichlidFan]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

I like the Aqua Clears as well, I wish there was a mixture of the emperor's bio wheel and the aqua clear on the market.
They are pretty pricey too......so I guess they must be the best.... :)


Steve

[NDsuperduty]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

i actually have one of those ac 110's sitting in my garage.  When i had it running before it was much loader than my emporers/penguin.  I may try it again, but it probably needs a new impellar too.

[eklikewhoa]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

IMO the "bio-wheel" is a joke....and A/C's are louder then the marineland/penguins but the work better.


Jws6, is that heater out of the water and in the waterflow?

[imagirlgeek]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

You've gotten lots of great advice on this thread, but thought I'd throw in mine and imaguygeek's experience with the Emperor 400 as well.  We've got 3 of them that came with a tank I bought a couple of years ago.  But we were having the same problem you are now.  That horrible grinding noise would start up and drive us nuts!  Usually late at night...go figure.  We used to keep a stash of spare impellers it was so bad, because of all the sand getting kicked up in the filter (by the giraffe cat, of course).  You could actually see where the impeller was chewed up from all the crap getting up in there.  Anyway, we use canisters now and keep the E400's clean and tucked away for emergencies.  Recently when our 210 crashed, we threw 2 of the E400's on it and by the next morning the tank was so much better.  It was amazing.  I have to believe they attributed to us not losing any fish during that catastrophe.  For the record, we've only had to replace the impeller on one canister filter, and it was an Eheim!  I was really shocked by that since the sand should have filtered through the media before reaching the impeller.  Who knows...

[J-WS6]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

IMO the "bio-wheel" is a joke....and A/C's are louder then the marineland/penguins but the work better.


Jws6, is that heater out of the water and in the waterflow?

Yeah it is, for the sake of the picture. I took it awhile back when I was doing a water change in case a post like this ever came up. I always leave the water topped off because the AC creates so much surface agitation. I have had occasions where the AC will start to making grinding/gurgling sounds, but if you take the reservoir apart from the impeller and clean/rinse both out, that always fixes the problem. It may cost a bit more in the beginning, but no more than you would spend for an Emperor new plus all the cartridges over the course of a year.

Good Luck

[NDsuperduty]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

This is your AC110 impeller



This is your AC110 impeller on Sand (kinda blurry but you get the idea)

[J-WS6]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

first clean the reservoir with a qtip to get out all the excess sand, then wipe off the impellar. re-assemble, and if it's still making noise then unplug and wait for a few seconds, then plug it in again (like priming it). if it's still making noise, leave it plugged in and lift the back of the intake hose up a little bit from the reservoir, and push down on the top of the impeller with your finger. once you do that if should catch and the noise should go away.

[NDsuperduty]

Re: Emporer 400 making alot of noise

Ya, when I went to clean my ac110 there was caked sand on the bottle of the filter area and all around where the impeller sits.  I was thinking this impeller will need to be replaced before I bother trying to get it running.