My Biowheel in my tank filter will not spin. Why?

[JeanineB]

I have a 55 gallon tank with two Biowheel filters. One thirty-gallon filter and one fifty-gallon filter (I have goldfish, they're diiiirty). Anyhow, the wheel on the thirty-gallon filter will not spin. I have two of the filter cartridges in. I thought that that may have something to do with it, so I removed one and watched to see if it made a difference. It didn't. Is the waterflow too light to spin the wheel? How can I fix it? Clean the tube?

Also, occasionally I'll find that my filters have randomly stopped working and I have to fiddle with the intake tube and pour water into it to get it working again. How can I keep that from happening? I'll be going out of town for 2 weeks soon and I don't want that happening while I'm gone.

 

[BrandonM1]

There's a few different designs for the biowheels. Some work simply on the overflow of the filter, others have a tube that sprays water directly on the biowheel. The first thing you will have to do is to make sure that the proper water flow is getting to the wheel. Sometimes it's your filter pads are clogged and the amount of water going through the filter isn't as much as it should be. Sometimes your intake is weak and your motor is going.

The other thing you're going to want to make sure to check is that the metal arms on the wheel itself and the housing for the wheel are clean and free of debris. I know stuff builds up on them somtimes and creates friction that the water pressure can't overcome.

Either way, it's not an uber critical thing to worry about if you're going on vacation, but they are nice to have and you may want to consider a new filter if none of that works.