Fluval 406 sucks.....air

[Tim_Koles]

Hi guys

Having an issue with my Fluval unit. its only about a year old and it has now started to suck air all the time. I have tried searching for a leak but no luck. There has been no leaking of water at all and since I believe the canister itself is pressurized, I figure the main o ring can't be the culprit. That leaves me the intake hose or the valve at the top. Neither show change when I futz with them. My next guess its the rings on the valve but amazon does not seem to carry them so I need to look elsewhere. Anybody else experience this?

[Linus_Cello]

Big Al's?
https://www.bigalspets.com/catalogsearc ... luval+ring

[sns26]

Have you tried running the thing in a bucket to isolate your problem? That is, remove the filter from the tank, put the intake and outflow hardware into a 5 gallon bucket, turn it on, and then dunk various parts of the works into the bucket to see when you kill off the problem.

Depending on where you live, Congressional Aquarium has a very good parts collection that includes Fluval stuff.

[Tim_Koles]

Thanks guys.

I'll try Big Al's.
I haven't removed the filter but I have tried messing around with a bunch of parts. Assuming its not the main o ring, the only parts exposed to air are the intake hose and the valve assembly. Next step is to get some replacement o-rings for the valve and see if that does anything.

[Tim_Koles]

Update on this. I had to buy a whole new valve assembly. Simple change and now it works just fine so. No more constant noise. Here is the kicker though. I only got that filter last year and since I'm not the best at doing water changes, the value only was operated maybe about 20 times before it broke. Not really happy about the quality of the unit if that is all it is good for.