Jump to content

No clog air stone just clogged


Vin123
 Share

Recommended Posts

One of my no clog air stones just clogged and I couldn’t even blow through the hose. After Looking closer It seems it unscrews and has two felt pads and on plastic. I always wondered what the extra tiny pads in the bag where for. 
 

Therefore no clog just went out the window correct? Do we need to clean these felt pads? Replace them every few months? If replace where do we get them? 
 

thoughts? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's wild. Yes they unscrew. Never seen one clog. I run several and have had them up and going for about a year. Can you post a photo of it? I can't see how it could clog unless you did something strange with it, and even then taking it apart and giving it a simple cleaning should restore it to full function. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Pete said:

That's wild. Yes they unscrew. Never seen one clog. I run several and have had them up and going for about a year. Can you post a photo of it? I can't see how it could clog unless you did something strange with it, and even then taking it apart and giving it a simple cleaning should restore it to full function. 

I just recently had one clog as well, just unscrewed a bit and all is working now.

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Cory said:

I've never seen one clog as well. We have hundreds in use for a very long time. I'd be interested in seeing in what scenario it clogged?

I had mine clamped down for fine bubbles running off my air loop(LPH45 pump installed this week), pulled line from valve to find full air pressure. Reattached line and loosened air stone to get full flow again. It was in use 2-3 weeks? Worked great until it didn't and works great now that I fiddled with it a bit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Jeremy B said:

I had mine clamped down for fine bubbles running off my air loop(LPH45 pump installed this week), pulled line from valve to find full air pressure. Reattached line and loosened air stone to get full flow again. It was in use 2-3 weeks? Worked great until it didn't and works great now that I fiddled with it a bit.

I've been having this issue too, had the same experience as you described. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't had any issues so far with my air stones. But, it makes me wonder if its something like when I was younger and worked in a LFS. Every so often we would have to take a straightened out paper clip and clean out the ends of the rigid air line that was in the uplift tubes of the UGF and sponge filters we used. It was like a hard water calcium build up. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Andy's Fish Den said:

It was like a hard water calcium build up. 

I thought about that too, its something I'll have to investigate on my setups. I do have hard water. I might try running them in a bowl of a citric acid solution to see if the flow improves.

Edited by MickS77
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, MickS77 said:

I thought about that too, its something I'll have to investigate on my setups. I do have hard water. I might try running them in a bowl of a citric acid solution to see if the flow improves.

The other thing I can think of is with the air going through felt pads, possibly the air is a little "dirty" and the felt is trapping the dirt, dust etc and clogging. I figured that was why they sent extras when you get them, to change them out when or if they clogged up. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Andy's Fish Den said:

The other thing I can think of is with the air going through felt pads, possibly the air is a little "dirty" and the felt is trapping the dirt, dust etc and clogging. I figured that was why they sent extras when you get them, to change them out when or if they clogged up. 

I mean I really hope that's not the case, I have regular air stones that I couldn't even tell you how old they are... fine bubble patterns too. That to me wouldn't be much of a never clog air stone if I'm cleaning them due to dust every 3 weeks. Now this has only happened once and I'm just hoping its something silly that happened and not dust/calcium buildup. I have been adding drops to my loop so I was thinking late last night maybe it was PVC dust, but I've been drilling and installing those with the pump on to hopefully not have that happen at all. I think I have 14 of these on tanks now and only one has given me an issue so hopefully just a fluke.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just stumbled on this thread this evening after mine actually clogged for the first time.  After cleaning the pads, its back to working great.  

The condition that it occurred for me is that I shuffled some substrate from another tank which clouded up the water.  I was using the never clog air stone in a Lee box filter with coarse sponge and filter floss. The substrate that clouded the water was fluval shrimp stratum.  I do think the air stone was clogging up before and my water is hard (24 gh).

Edited by Ben_RF
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had a similar issue.   I initially thought that it was ironic that the no clog air stone clogged.  I have several of them running on multiple tanks without any issue, but on one tank in kept clogging inside of a sponge filter.  Finally replaced it with a standard air stone and all was well.  But a day or so later the standard stone clogged.  Discovered that the stones were not at fault, clearly as I was not having this problem in my other tanks.  Rather, the airline was being pinched inside of the sponge filter.  

I should note that I also believed the filter pads in the stone was the culprit and replaced them without any success.  User error (or Id10t error) was the problem in my case.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Bill Smith said:

My never-clog airstones (with the blue felt) in multiple tanks all eventually clog after 2-3 months. My theory is that it has to do with the fact that I have very hard water and very high pH. I suspect I get a build-up of calcium in the felt.

It must be something else! I have  neverclog airstones working in multiple tanks for almost a year now, no clogging. And one tank is overstocked and all of them have super hard water! I got about 390ppm GH, and 7.6-7.8pH. Have never once cleaned them lol. What kind of fish do you have where your stones get clogged?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, HenryC said:

It must be something else! I have  neverclog airstones working in multiple tanks for almost a year now, no clogging. And one tank is overstocked and all of them have super hard water! I got about 390ppm GH, and 7.6-7.8pH. Have never once cleaned them lol. What kind of fish do you have where your stones get clogged?

Varies wildly, but the dirtiest tanks do clog faster.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Could it be his water is hard from a dirty dissolved solid? Here my water is hard with a lot of limestone. I'm not certain all water is hard due to that or can it be mostly calcium or something? Would one be way more likely to clog a stone? I have often ran the same air stones for many years and never had one clog.

Edited by Ben Ellison
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I purchased I think four of them from ACO, and they all clogged.

I also could never get fine bubbles out of them no matter how I adjusted the tightness, so I was stuck with big, blooping bubbles. I tried them inside sponge filters as well as on their own in the tank. I use ACO's USB air pumps (always have since I started this hobby) along with tightening valves, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't the air pressure being too high.

Anyway, because of this and the constant clogging, I tossed them all (who needs the hassle?) and went back to the cheap discs that I can scrub and then inexpensively replace when necessary. I get nice, fine, quiet bubbles.

Here's a question: IF the problem with clogging is hard water, and a large portion of the U.S. has hard water, how can they be sold as "never-clog" without a "soft water only" disclaimer?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, genuine_red said:

Here's a question: IF the problem with clogging is hard water, and a large portion of the U.S. has hard water, how can they be sold as "never-clog" without a "soft water only" disclaimer?

In all fairness, I don't know for a fact that the cause is my hard water. But that is a massive difference between my water and the water the AC folks are testing in...

That said, it could just as easily be dirty water...my dirtier tanks did seem to clog their stones faster. I also noticed that the stones were less likely to clog if I didn't tighten them much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...