Within the Tubes

The water was looking dirtier than usual.
Which wasn't a good thing.
I noticed that our Display Goldfish in the Tank had been hanging out at the surface a bit more for the past little bit as well.

Which once I stuck my hand in the water.
Confirmed my suspicions.
As I placed it where the outflow of water should have been from the canister filter.
And felt nothing.

Not a good thing as no flowing water meant that filtration wasn't happening which meant that the water was getting dirty and without the air pump already in the tank providing bubbles...the water probably would have stagnated.

The fact that the filter in the goldfish tank wasn't flowing told me....
That it had probably been waaaaay too long since the canister filter had been cleaned out.
As I can't remember when I last did it.
I feel like it was recently but it was probably like 3 or 4 months ago. *shrugs*
I hadn't really thought about it because we usually do display tank maintenance on Sundays and I don't usually work those days.

But who knew if my coworkers would actually work on the tank this Sunday.
The fish needed help now.

Unfortunately.
I had to wait until another coworker arrived so I could mess with the canister filter.
-That way I could work without having to stop and help customers.

I wasn't surprised when I opened up the filter.
-after making sure it was turned off and properly closed down so I wouldn't end up spilling water all over the place.

It was covered in brown slime.
Yah...definitely hadn't been cleaned in a while.
So I took apart the filter, cleaning off all the different media associated with canister filters before putting it all back together and turned it back on.

To have it not work.
Oh yah the motor was running, I could hear that working just fine.
But for whatever reason...water still wasn't flowing!

Ugh.
I took it apart again and again.
Filled it up with water.
Moved the nozzles. the pump things, whatever I could think of to get it to work.
To no dice.

I couldn't figure out why the filter wasn't drawing water from the tank to go into the canister to spit it back out cleaner into the tank.

Since the canister itself was fine.
I -after like 45 minutes of struggle- decided to see if I could take apart a section of the hosing.
The part that holds the hoses to the canister filter.

And to my surprise.
I discovered the problem.

The intake hose was clogged with sludge.
Thick sludge.
Like it was a dirty brown cotton ball consistency of sludge.
Probably could have made a rope out of it really.
A couple of prods and I dislodged the thing and managed to get some water flowing that way.

Which meant water was now going Into the filter!
Sweet!
Now...to get it back into the tank.
So I took the little pump gizmo and moved it up and down a few times.
And was rewarded!!

It more sludgy cotton ball type rope thick slime getting shot out into the tank.

And after that blockage was removed.
WATER!!
We had water flow into the tank!!

YES!
It only took me an hour, lol but at least I figured out what was wrong in the end. :)
Now the goldfish can relax and swim about in piece.
....until I remember I need to change the filter again. lol

-Sarnic Dirchi