Fluval 204 backup crap on clean out

[sushiray]

Ok, I must be doing something wrong, big time. I have cleaned my 204 twice b-4 & all seemed ok. 3rd time was after feeding too much frozen brine so 204 filtered out a lot. when I finished cleaning & pumped/primed (using the siphon key) all of a sudden a thrust of crud came out of the return tube. all this brine which was not in the filter media. I can't understand what happened. but here is what I did so maybe someone can tell me what I did wrong.

I go thru my cleaning of the filter as follows:

1. lift water stopper lever
2. lift water flow lever to off
3. unlatch the top unit & separate from canister
4. remove canister with full water
5. pour water into drain
6. pull out media baskets & clean & rinse (lightly rinse biomedia only)
7. slide out sponge holder, clean/rinse thoroughly (it was filthy)
8. replace it all
9. reconnect latch
10. pump/prime

this is when the crud comes gushing out. I guess somehow was still in the tubes & was not caught by the sponge?

note - to put back the canister cover back on there are 2 sides - side1 left has the plastic suction cup for the siphon, side2 has the round plastic cover housing the impeller. I have to think I placed on correctly. Side1 over the sponge coming from the intake tube, side2 over the media basket side. that makes sense right?

so what the hell did I do wrong??

 

[Amazon_Addict]

Well first off it sounds like your doing everything right, except you should rinse off the bio material in tank water. Even with a light rinse in tap water it can kill the beneficial bacteria because of the temp difference.

 

[sushiray]

Well first off it sounds like your doing everything right, except you should rinse off the bio material in tank water. Even with a light rinse in tap water it can kill the beneficial bacteria because of the temp difference.

yes, next time I will tank water, makes sense.

I think I will have to detach the tubes also to be sure any crud stuck in it is flushed out. but I still can't figure out how that much crud could come out when it was not in the media baskets or sponges.

& can't figure out why crud would somehow come back out.

I did notice that when I take the top off, water top had poop floating around, so tells me it was not being sucked down thru the sponges. but I didn't see any brine crud floating around.

and flow was still strong leading me to believe there was no clogging.

now could it be that the sponge was so saturated that it kept circulating at the top & then was pushed back out into the tank? does that mean the outbound side of the cover was not sealed as tight over the canister's water return side?

I can't figure out the logic on why crud would back up & come back out on the siphoning action, not when powered on.

???