# Cascade 1500



## MFNRyan (Mar 27, 2011)

I have a 1500 on my 55g. This is four times the filtration on a solo fish tank. For some messed up reason I can't get the params in check on this tank. It has been running 3 months or so with the new filter.

My question: Does this filter cycle dirty water from the top to the bottom then feed clean water back up through to tube to the top of the filter and to the tank or vise versa? If so I may have my media backwards! I have the sponge thing at the bottom, then two rows of floss then two rows of bio cubes at the top.


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## Nzac (Oct 13, 2010)

It takes dirty water from the bottom to clean at the top. In my 1000 I run the coarse sponge in the bottom, then bio, then more bio, then more bio and a finer white floss on top. I can usually get by about 3 months before I have to clean it out, would be longer if i didn't use the white floss at the top.


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## MFNRyan (Mar 27, 2011)

Yeah I'm running the 1500 on my 55g with only my Gibbus in it. He eats a couple small squares every 8-10 days. Not very messy. I have it set up with the course sponge on the bottom, then floss, then floss again, then bio-cubes, then bio-cubes. For some screwy reason I can't get this filter to get my Param's in check?? I have gone through this tank completely and have tried everything I could, prime, start right, stress zyme, nutrafin BB addative, and tetra water conditioner. Nothing seems to help. I do daily water changes of around 10%. Just today I changed 10g of water and added prime plus the nutrafin and tonight 3 hours later ammonia is still dark green. People say maybe the tank isn't cycled well its been running over a year, went through the cycle before I added fish, then added an water params went hay wire, put the 1500 on the tank params got great for about 2 weeks then went right back to hay wire for the last 2 months probably. I can't figure it out! I'm thinking about taking one of the floss out and maybe adding more bio cubes. Right now I have two boxes of fluval bio cubes in this filter. Also why do they say not to have a bend in the tubes supply and return tubes? Mine do have a slight bend in them


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## Nzac (Oct 13, 2010)

I have never played with all those chemicals, My belief is they are all just ammonia in a bottle, BB cannot live without oxygen, how can they keep oxygen in a sealed airtight bottle? I simply dechlorinate the water. When you switched filters, did you leave the old one on the tank for a month? did you take some media from it and place it in the canister? If not I would bet you have restarted the cycling process. Any time I start a new filter on an existing tank I leave the old filter(or media from it in new filter) running for a month on the tank til I am sure the new one has all the BB needed. I am curious though, when you do water changes, do you dechlorinate the water before putting it into your tank? if not the chlorine could be wiping out the BB befoe the dechlorinator does its thing, same goes for cleaning bio media, always use dechlorinated water of the same temp to prevent bb kill off.

If I remember correctly and you are the one that has torn the tank down and cleaned everything several times, that would have wiped out any BB you had on decor, in gravel, etc, which would make the filter BB even more important. The bacteria cycle is just something you have to let happen, there are no shortcuts. (I take a filter off a running tank to start a new tank, but all my tanks have 2 filters on them so the necessary bacteria is still alive and well in both tanks)

the no bend in the lines is so air doesn't get trapped in the lines, there have been people that couldn't get the filter to self prime until they straightened out the hoses.


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## MFNRyan (Mar 27, 2011)

Well the old filter was a aqueous HOB that came with the tank. I left it on for two weeks. Nitrite was high when I got the new filter which is why I bought it. After running a few weeks params looked good. Then suddenly ammonia an only ammonia started in the tank. Wouldn't go down no matter what I did, after 3 weeks of this is when I pulled everything out of the tank in case something was stuck under some of my
Decor releasing ammonia into my tank. So I cleaned it all an rustled the gravel to make sure I had everything. I always clean my stuff with water I took from the tank, never use tap water. Also I treat my new water before I put it in the tank an treat it with prime. I didn't use all the chemicals at once just tried them until the bottle ran out on water treatment only. To remove chlorine and stuff. I don't know what's going on with this thing. I don't see how it's not cycled has been running for almost a year. I do 10% water changes almost daily an just can't get it to clear up. I keep extra filters on all my tanks also an twice I have moved a filter from my otherbtanks ambler it run for a few weeks on this one still no change. I took my magnum HOT off an let it run it was off a well established tank still didn't do anything for the tank. I have no clue what to do with it. I have tried leaving it alone for a week doing no water change to let the tank clear it out an it just continues to get worse


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