Sponge Filter Problems

[Unbracing]

Evening everyone, this may sound silly. I have a sponge filter that stopped bubbling bubbles. Air pump is working. I Cleaned the sponge yesterday. Today no bubbles. Anyone have this happen to them before?

[AndyDyck]

Maybe the airstone is clogged if you have one in it, The airline tubing could also be pinched. Those are my guesses.

Edited June 5, 2021 by AndyDyck

[H.K.Luterman]

I recently had this problem on two sponges. It was the air stones being clogged. I just replaced them and it fixed it

[Unbracing]

Awesome thanks 

[Guppysnail]

I switched mine out to the ACO ziss never clog air stones for this reason. So far they seem to do great time will tell. 

[gardenman]

If you have a generic sponge filter with a built-in bubbler, what happens is the nub on the bottom of the plate will eventually get blocked and your flow of bubbles will lessen. I take mine apart and shorten that bottom nub and it fixes the issue. They build them with a very fine tolerance and that nub is almost touching the bottom. Just a little debris build up or the two sections sliding closer to one another is all it takes to slow or even block the flow of air. The photos below show you one of mine that's partially disassembled. Then the top plate on the bottom section is removed. Then it's flipped over to show the nub intact. Then you see the nub in its shortened form. Then you reassemble it and you're back at full bubble flow. Fast, easy, and effective.