# Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller cleaning



## Calzone (13 Mar 2012)

I have posted this in my journal thread too, but it's urgent so thought I would post here too...  Apologies for the double posting

Did some pruning tonight and took the opportunity to clean the eheim 2180. took out the impeller, cleaned that, sprayed with eheim maintenance spray, replaced. Fitted.  Primed. Turned on.  Grunk grunk.  No flow.

Turned off.  Impeller out.  Spray cleaned with hose.  Fitted carefully.  Impeller in (Jesus that magnet is strong). Ceramic shaft in. Cover on.

Still screwed.

Repeat ad nauseam.  Tried putting I the white shaft first, then the impeller over the top. Still nothing..  Manual suggest either impeller or shaft broken.  Both look totally intact to me.  If I put the impeller on the shaft in my hand and spin it, it works fine.  But once in the filter, no go.  I can't believe the motor has gone, and I would say its full of water, at least priming makes no difference even after many pushes.  Can anyone advise?  What does a broken impeller/ shaft look like?  I assume it's obvious?  The impeller is hard to turn once in the casing -you can feel the magnetic resistance.

So, either I have broken one of the bits, or I haven't primed properly, or the motor has gone.  Can't think what else.
Double nightmare because the co2 is running off this filter, and so is the heater.....  Any advice much appreciated.

After water change tonight the tank is at 20 deg.  Have moved the heater from my small tank as this might help somewhat. Without co2 I assume I should turn down the lights to 4 hours, and don't feed the fish while I try to fix it?


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## John S (14 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*

Sounds like either air in the filter or you haven't located the impellor properly. Th white impellor shaft sits between two rubber fittings. When you take the impellor out these may stick, one in the impellor cap and one in the pump housing itself. I suspect maybe the shaft isn't sitting in the one in the pump housing.


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## freelanderuk (15 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*

when i have cleaned my 2180's i have manually filled the canister with water so i dont have to fill by the prime button, connected all the pipe work back up turned the pump on then open the leaver and all is well i may have to nip one of the pipes to get suction on both but not usually , if you are using the prime to fill make sure the output is above the water to expel any air


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## dw1305 (15 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*

Hi all,
I think it is an air lock as well. I usually reconnect mine after cleaning, and then have a good suck on the outlet pipe until I can see water running into the filter body.  (If you have double taps, you can leave the inlet hose full of water, and it should start filling under gravity). I put the out let hose under the tank water, and then just wait until the air stops bubbling out. At that point I re-connect the spray bar, venturi or fish-tail etc and turn the filter on. Water should come out immediately. If it doesn't I have another suck on the out-let hose and wait until the hose stops bubbling etc.

Once the filter is running I then rock the filter forwards and backwards fairly gently until the remaining air is purged. When all the air is purged the filter should be almost silent unless you put your ear to the filter head when you can hear a slight impeller hum.

cheers Darrel


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## Calzone (15 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*

The issue turned out to be a priming issue.  My inlet hoses were still full of water, so when i connected the hoses and opened the valve, water poured in immediately, and filled up the prefilter tray.  But not, for some reason, the rest of the filter.  I had naively assumed this was primed becuase I could hear the water filling it.

The solution, was to press the priming button quickly immediately I opened the value, this way the prefilter tray was stil mostly empty when priming, and as a result the whole canister filled.

So for anyone with these filters note that priming when your inlet hoses are already full of water is actually not easy.

Now, on a second point, having restarted, I note that my flow is much reduced.  This is surprising, given I've cleaned the filter (but not the hoses).

So I am now concerned that even with all this I have somehow not put the impeller bits back together properly, or damaged it when running it dry (albeit only for a few seconds).  The alternative is simply that the hoses are dirty enough that the friction drag is slowing flow, or I have a blockage somewhere such as a hose kink I havent seen.  I can't think of anything else that coudl have changed.

Just on this, when I removed the impeller, the shaft came out still attached to the impeller cover.  I then pulled the impeller out, leaving the shaft bushing still in the impeller housing out of reach.  When putting it back to gether, is it best to fit the white shaft first, firmly into the bushing at the top of the impeller housing, then slide the impeller itself onto the shaft and let it be drawn into the housing by the magnets?  This way the impeller hopefuly remains central?  The problem being that the impeller is pulled into the housing quite violently by the magnetic force.  

Or is it best to put the impeller into the housing first, then slide the shaft into it and wiggle it about until the shaft seems to fit into the bushing hole at the top of the housing (noting that you can't see it so are just guessing at this point)?

What do others do?


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## freelanderuk (15 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*

Make sure the rubber seal on the square pipe that is fitted near the impellor is secured with the impellor  plate


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## John S (15 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*

When refitting the impellor I always fit the shaft into the pump housing first, then the imepllor and end cap. When my hoses are full I just lift the outlet above the waterline and open the valve. Once its full, switch on and press the primer a couple of times.

If your flow is reduced do you think you could still have trapped air?


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## Calzone (15 Mar 2012)

freelanderuk said:
			
		

> Make sure the rubber seal on the square pipe that is fitted near the impellor is secured with the impellor  plate



I don't have it open in front of me, but I can't picture the square pipe u mean.....?


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## freelanderuk (16 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*

it comes from the impeller housing , its the outflow pipe, the first time i cleaned mine the rubber seal was not secured properly and leaking and flow reduced

look here   

http://www.eheim.com/app/webroot/files/ ... f_3_GB.pdf 

part number 7209268 near the impeller


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## Calzone (16 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*

Ah, yes, the white one.  Think that might be it, because although it wasnt loose, i could move it where it attached to the impeller housing and see a small gap - I assume this need to be very snug?

I spoke to Allan at John Allan Aquariums, Eheim UK service agents, and he suggested the very same thing.  So will look into that tonight.  Touch wood.  From the sound of it, the impeller is running normally, I just have no flow.  So seems consistent with the impeller pushing all the water around inside the canister without pushing it up the outlet hose.  I also noticed that when wiggling the filter about to get air out, my temperature reading fluctuated, and I suppose this could be consistent with water circulating about around the heating element  and getting overheated briefly.

Darn!  Fiddly.  But at least I will be an eheim expert by the time I'm done....  I already noticed some hair algae growing on the trimmed ludwigia - expect it will be inches long by the time I get home tonight - just a couple of days with reduced flow and co2......


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## freelanderuk (16 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*

As you say , if its not fitted correctly and secured with the impeller cap , water is just pumped around the canister


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## Antipofish (16 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*

So did that fix it Nick ? Im keeping my fingers crossed you have a tornado in your tank by now with the filter flowing right


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## Calzone (17 Mar 2012)

Seems it did.  Removed it, cleaned it, refitted it, removed it again as couldn't remember which way up the grey attachment bit went in, checked the manual, sussed it out, refitted it, took AM1000 reactor out of the circuit as it can make priming fiddly, primed, turned on: Flow!

Great.  So, turned off, out am1000 back in circuit, restarted: Sod all flow.

Oh.

Confused.  Pretty sure the impeller outlet tube did need fixing.  But now my reactor is completely ruining my flow, whereas it didn't affect it much before I had the problem.  I just can't see tHat anything has changed.  So, as of now I have removed the reactor, and have decent flow.  I will fiddle with the reactor later, see if anything obviously wrong though at first glance no blockages.

Can anyone think of a reason why this would occur?  Interestingly, the filter makes a louder, air bubble type noise when the reactor in, and is quiet when it's out.  And it's not the reactor making the noise.  So it feels like some sort of back pressure situation.  Also the reactor was full when I started the filter with small air bubbles in the eheim double taps.  Maybe there's some sort of airlock ?.??....


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## Antipofish (17 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*

you only have scrunchies in your reactor dont you ?  I found I lost about 20% with my reactor inline.  ALSO, I think that the fact it feeds from the top and expels from the bottom creates extra resistance.  Have you tried filling the reactor with water before switching back on, OR do you have the air release valve open to allow the reactor to fill with water properly ?  Thats all I can think of


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## freelanderuk (17 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*

I have  am reactors on both of the filters outputs on the 5foot tank, are you sure both your inlet pipes are sucking water , my flow is reduced but not to much to worry about, both reactors have nothing in them and was thinking about putting the reactors on the inlet instead of output


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## Antipofish (17 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*



			
				freelanderuk said:
			
		

> I have  am reactors on both of the filters outputs on the 5foot tank, are you sure both your inlet pipes are sucking water , my flow is reduced but not to much to worry about, both reactors have nothing in them and was thinking about putting the reactors on the inlet instead of output



Would putting it on the inlet not restrict flow more, or is a restriction a restriction regardless ? (Sounds a dumb question but I am sure I read you limit yourself to output no greater than input.  Hmm, STILL sounds dumb lol). There should be no problem maintaining the reactor with nothing in.  I know others have done that too.


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## freelanderuk (17 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*



			
				Antipofish said:
			
		

> freelanderuk said:
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i don't think it would restrict more as with the 2180 and 2080 filters you have  2 inlets and only 1 output


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## Antipofish (17 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*



			
				freelanderuk said:
			
		

> Antipofish said:
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Of course, I forgot about that   Fair enough.  Certainly can't hurt to try anyway.  Those are BIG burgers thats for sure !


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## Calzone (17 Mar 2012)

Here's the thing.  It was working fine before I cleaned it, with maybe not even 20% reduction.  Now its 90% in line.  Something must have changed.  I haven't had a chance to fiddle today.  Maybe there's some sort of airlock effect going on, as I know it WAS working fine.  I will try taking the mesh out, but there's no blockage so don't think its that.  I am at a loss.  The frustration is that I can work out what changed more than it not working, as I know it did and therefore should.


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## freelanderuk (17 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*

you haven't put the white filer pad on top of the plastic mesh have you, that would reduce output


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## Calzone (17 Mar 2012)

Nope....


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## sanj (23 Mar 2012)

*Re: Help with non-functioning eheim 2180 after impeller clea*

I used to have my Aquamas reactor on the input, but since changed it to the output,reactor used to get clogged more quickly. 

Have you sorted your flow now?


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