Magnum 350 canister question

[Warborg]

I'll give a quick background first. About 3-4 years ago a friend gave me his tank and stuff which included a magnum 350. I never messed with it until today. I dumped the water(yuck). I then tested it to make sure it still worked and it did. I pulled an empty 5 gallon and filled it. Then I filled the canister and topped it with some bleach... upon running it I found one of the connectors leaked due to a missing gasket. Good thing I was testing this outside.

I ran it for nearly an hour. My question and concern is the water level dropped to 25% inside the canister. Has anyone had one that has dropped this low? I had about 4 of these back in the 90s and none of them would drop that low(50-75% at the most). I redid it(shut off and refilled it) and had the hoses with about 50% water but when I ran it again... again it dropped to 25%. I tried tilting the canister but nothing.

Most of the time I would just leave them and after a few hours they would almost fill themselves up. I'm worried though with it being so low, it seems like it's struggling.

 

[Jc1119]

Mine does(did) the same. I usually had to turn it on and off quite a few times to get it to stop and sometimes it just ran with a ton of air in it. I thought maybe I was doing something wrong lol. Now I just use it to do water changes on a few tanks.

Good to know Im not completely crazy.

 

[MikeGuerra]

mine does have that problem it been running good i think but it does seem loud and like it is struggling but its been like that for a while and i cant pinpoint what it is...hope its just the impeller but i cleaned it out and still does the same

 

[jdhuegel1]

Usually the water drop is attributed to an air leak in the main o-ring seal (on the lid). I ran 4 of these on my old 125 and had to deal with that from time to time. Replace the o-ring and make sure to use the silicone grease to ensure a good seal.

Impeller magnets are (per the manufacturer email I received) a "wear and tear item" also. Check them out. If they're beat to death, replace them. Although mine were destroyed and still ran fine :/

 

[Warborg]

Update: I got the gasket awhile back but finally got to messing with it today, sadly it's still leaking even with the new gasket. I replaced the gasket with another one...and still it leaks. I've closely examined the connector(s) and can't find anything wrong with them or the gaskets.

Seems my last option is to replace the connector(s)