Prefilter seems bad for my canister

[BumBumBee]

I have a Filstar xp3. I fit a hagen aquaclear prefilter to it, one of the big ones (8" or so) My intake hose is colapseing and the filter has a lot of air in it. There are no leaks, it just can't get 350gph through it.

[Ardan]

Hi,
If the intake hose is collapsing , that means that water can't get through the prefilter. Either the prefilter is too clogged up or the prefilter is not porous enough to let 350 gph through it and it then collapses from the suction.
take the prefilter off, if it works ok then you know the problem is in the prefilter. Clean it and try again, if no luck, try another prefilter, maybe with larger pores

hth

[sammosammo]

bumbumbee,

I use the prefilter from Aquarium Tech for my XP3, and the flow is about the same. I clean the prefilter every day at w/c - i found it starts to slow the flow at about 2 months. I squeeze air out before installing onto the intake tube. However, I set the flow setting on my xp3 at about 1/2 setting - otherwise my discus only stay on one side of the 55g tank.