Restarting an aquarium

**Fish_Girl** · 05-28-2012, 12:57 AM

Hi,

New girl here. I'm looking forward to learning from you all.

I had to dismantle my 50 gallon freshwater aquarium two years ago when we moved to a new house. I'm now ready to begin again but I'm concerned about my equipment having sat packed in a box for two years. I have an Eheim ecco canister filter. I've checked it out and it seems fine but is it? Have the bushings and gaskets dried out and become unreliable? I'm wondering whether I should just go with it or replace it. It's five years old.

If anyone has some advice I would appreciate it.

Thanks.

**Cliff** · 05-28-2012, 01:01 AM

I've had filters sitting that long on the closet before pulling them out to use them. Lub the seals with some vaseline and give them a test run. You should be fine tho.

**Fish_Girl** · 05-28-2012, 01:44 PM

Thanks Cliff. I'll give it a test run.

**DoublEntendre** · 07-28-2012, 01:37 AM

Yeah, I've had some really old looking filters run just fine. Sometimes you need to give them a good cleaning first. For one of my filters, I had to get a new impeller because the old one had cracked, but since I've done that, it has been working very well.

**fishguy420** · 07-28-2012, 02:10 AM

to the post above me.That was smart talking about replaceing the impeller.Before I started talking to fish exsperts I threw my filter system away thinking they were junk.Those are the first to go or they could be stuck or just really dirty.When cleaning your canister filter make sure you scrub down the impeller.The impeller also cheap to replace.

**Northerly** · 07-28-2012, 03:28 PM

I've got a cascade 300 that sat in a storage unit for like 3 years and it still works just fine. It's not a canister filter and doesn't the gaskets and such that a canister does, but I'd say you'd definitely be fine if everything looks alright. +1 to cliff about the vaseline.