my HOB filter decided to leak out.

Sunday morning my HOB filter decided to leak out to it side and flooded my carpet floor upstairs. Had to all day "spot bot" manual hose vac my bedroom carpet. Luckily it was only the corner wall of entrance.

When I woke up to feed the fishes and walked up to tanks, felt my whole feet soaked.  Started to look for tank leaks first then filter leaks. It was that SOB HOB filter. Damn scared the §#!+ out of me. 

Rough. You might consider renting a rug doctor to get up the moisture. Fans on the carpet at the very least.

Was it an Aquaclear HOB filter? Those tend to have the most problems with other people. I have two Aquaclear 70's but never ran into problems with them. . . . . yet. *knock on wood*

I just had an Aquaclear "leak" on me onto my hardwood floors. I think what happened was that it had the little leveler thing fall out so it was tipping backwards some and I had it loaded up with media so the flow got a little slow and out the back and over the side it started to drip and I didn't notice it. Something I'm now watching on all my Aquaclears. It was an AC50. Even with this though I love the Aquaclears as HOB's. They do a bang up job.

Aquaclear HOB's have to be level and always make sure the motor seal (o-ring) is pliable and not cracked and dry. They really are the best HOB you can get, IMO.

SiRWesDragon wrote:Sunday morning my HOB filter decided to leak out to it side and flooded my carpet floor upstairs.  Had to all day "spot bot" manual hose vac my bedroom carpet. Luckily it was only the corner wall of entrance.  

When I woke up to feed the fishes and walked up to tanks, felt my whole feet soaked.  Started to look for tank leaks first then filter leaks.  It was that SOB HOB filter.  Damn scared the §#!+ out of me. 

Did you have a replacement filter!? One has to dry the carpet out or mold may get into the carpet

Aquarium Co-Op wrote:Rough. You might consider renting a rug doctor to get up the moisture. Fans on the carpet at the very least.

Sorry to hear about the leak. That is always the dreaded thing in our hobby and the bigger the tank the bigger the worry.

cichlid-gal wrote:I just had an Aquaclear "leak" on me onto my hardwood floors.  I think what happened was that it  had the little leveler thing fall out so it was tipping backwards some and I had it loaded up with media so the flow got a little slow and out the back and over the side it started to drip and I didn't notice it.  Something I'm now watching on all my Aquaclears.  It was an AC50.  Even with this though I love the Aquaclears as HOB's.  They do a bang up job.

Spyral wrote:Aquaclear HOB's have to be level and always make sure the motor seal (o-ring) is pliable and not cracked and dry. They really are the best HOB you can get, IMO.

The "problem" with the Aquaclears isn't necessarily with the product itself, but lack of cleaning out the sponge that's in it. What usually happens is when the sponge gets full of gunk, the flow of water becomes weaker to the point where it just pushes the foam block upwards, and causes the cover of the filter to come off, and then leakage happens shortly after =P

This can be prevented though, by cleaning the sponge, maybe once a month, or every other week.

The O-Ring seal can be fixed by applying a small amount of vaseline/petroleum jelly on the ring itself (I believe it can be removed, or even replaced if you buy the spare part for it, kinda like how canister filters have o-rings that can be replaced as well).

As far as having petroleum jelly in contact with water for the fish, I haven't had any adverse effects, granted I use a very small amount, like, half the size of a grain of rice on my o-rings for my canister filters, so I would assume that you would need a lot less for a smaller o-ring for the aquaclears.

Odd; I never had that happen with my AC HOBs and I ran 4 of them for at least a year (20s and 30s). The lid doesn't keep the water in...

I have one of the cheaper Aqueon HOB that I just use cut-to-size filter floss in (instead of buying their ridiculous cartridges), but have never had it leak or anything. It is a very simple design, mostly a single piece of molded plastic, so I think the only way it could leak is if both the filter pad and the overflow cutout were completely clogged, and even then I doubt it would overflow out the back.

There is something to be said for simplicity. I run 3 of them in different sizes, and haven't had an issue so far.

Anyway, I agree with Cory, you really should rent a rug doctor or something, that much water can cause some real damage down the road if it's not taken care of properly now.

I agree with LuminousAphid.

The Aqueon design give me some peace of mind over my hardwood floors when all of the typical motor leaking seal parts are already in the tank. They have massive water flow, the only negative I have with them is the spendy filters that are more like a polishing pad ( have not rigged up my own yet ) and sometimes they make a lot of noise.. gurgling water or just the motor humm.

Aquarium Co-Op wrote:Rough. You might consider renting a rug doctor to get up the moisture. Fans on the carpet at the very least.

I suck out water with hose of the spot bot cleaner (tiring arms felt numb after hours of vacuuming out the water) and had the fan on all day & night. Still have fan on and window open.

The filter problem was media preventing flow and excess water dripping to the sides. I removed some of the media and it balance its flow.

The worse feeling you get when you feel water on your floor. "Is there a leak?!" 

I know that feeling all too well. Over the 4th of July we went out to see my father-in-law in Naches for four days, came home to my 10g sw tank almost half empty. My problem wasn't with a filter, but one of the power heads came loose off the side of the tank and was spraying water up over the back of the tank XD

I love the aquaclear hob's . They are like small canister filters. When the lid pops up its cleaning time. I won't even use another hob! as a matter of fact I have some aqueon quiet flow 10 filter cartriges size (m) for free if anyone wants them. It's 4 new replacements

aquaclear HOB filters are pretty darn good, considering that it has so much potential because it can use so many different filter media, and even has greater potential when you can modify that filter media to your specific needs!

You can't go wrong with the aquaclear HOBs, I just ditch the sponge part, and just toss in bio-media, then put a prefilter on the intake, and presto! Goodbye wet floors!

PokeSephiroth wrote:You can't go wrong with the aquaclear HOBs, I just ditch the sponge part, and just toss in bio-media, then put a prefilter on the intake, and presto! Goodbye wet floors!

The problem was my 3rd media filter floss was done.  Sponge is 1st, ceramic rings are 2nd, and the filter floss was the 3rd. Filter floss was replaced. This time I let a space for excess water to leak out to the front instead of the sides.

Do you need the filter floss? That seems like it would clog quickly. I use a sponge and then I have a bag of matrix on top and thats it.

It doesn't sound like a great design, from someone who has never seen the inside of one. And if there are at least a few people just on this forum who have had it overflow/leak, there are most likely thousands more around the country/world? who have had the same thing happen. And it's not like it's a minor design flaw, it's a critical failure of the system to the point that it can cause major damage to property other than just the tank itself... I definitely think they should fix the issue (if they are even still improving designs, didn't they get bought by hagen/fluval?) and until they do, I will probably be steering clear of them unless I get one on the cheap

Thanks PokeSephiroth for pointing out that the flaws can be fixed, if I happen to find one at a garage/estate sale or something I might still pick it up.

Informative thread, in any case!

Its not necessarily a design flaw, nothing is 100% fool proof. Its all a matter of maintaining efficiency with the design. When set up and maintained properly the aquaclear filters are top notch, but like with everything you have to give them a look over every once in a while to make sure things are running smoothly.

SiRWesDragon wrote:
The problem was my 3rd media filter floss was done.  Sponge is 1st, ceramic rings are 2nd, and the filter floss was the 3rd. Filter floss was replaced. This time I let a space for excess water to leak out to the front instead of the sides.

 

I can relate! For me I thought packing as much media in as possible was the way to go. It took a while but learned this isn't always the best idea. I think you hit the nail on the head here!

I'm with DMD I use 1 sponge and 2 loose net bags filled with the aquaclear bio stones! when I would use a carbon bag it would pop the lid off faster, This way I barely have to clean it at all. I'm curious did the lid pop up before the flood

Nope just leak out on the side of HOB filter and on to my carpet. Nothing is wrong with the unit. It was trail and error on the filter media from me to see what clears the tank better. It does the job but I NEED to keep an eye on the media from barricading the flow to a different route. Like it did Sunday. Anyway. All is good.