# Marineland Magniflow Filter Leak - found the reason why!



## hopeforthebest (Sep 10, 2009)

I have a planted, low tech 75 gallon tank. The basic plants and community fish. Many of my fish and plants are several years old. I have an Eheim Ecco canister filter, a good 10 years old or more, a new Fluval HOB Whisper filter, and had a 10 month old Marineland Magniflow 360 canister filter. One day, I was doing the normal maintenance on my Magniflow, and reapplied more silicone O-Ring lube on the motorhead, carefully repacked all the media and media trays back into the canister. Put the motorhead back on and locked it down. Rehooked the filter to my tank. The filter had a major leak! Disconnected it, took it apart and repacked it a total of 3 times. It leaked badly with each attempt to correct the leak. 3 big bath towels and one old bedsheet later, that I used to mop up all the water, I gave up on it. It was leaking out of the handles, *not* where the motorhead and canister meet, where the O-Ring is. I call Marineland and ask about the leak. They told me to get new O-Rings. I was also told to send the motorhead back to them, I pay all shipping costs too! I order 2 packages of new O-Rings for a total (S&H included) for a insane $45. 00. The new rings arrive and I install them. Still leaks, badly. I then send an email to Marineland and tell them that I have a badly leaking filter, in spite of new rather expensive O-Rings. I now have spent over $200.00 for a useless filter, not even one year old. Marineland agrees to send me a new filter! The new filter arrives, now hooked up and running. My tank suffered without that filter for almost a month. It really required frequent water changes. Now, I just took apart the very leaky old motorhead and I am surprised at how cheaply and under-engineered (if that is what it is called) of the red primer button assembly is. That is what leaks so bad!! There is only one thin gasket under the prime button that if it moves while using the rather stiff button, or mineral deposits settle in there, that little gasket becomes useless and lets water pour out. I would post pictures, but I don't know how. Has anyone ever opened up the canister filter motorheads before? Is there any modifications I can do to this motorhead to save as a backup filter? Because I now know how poorly sealed that primer button is, I will try to avoid using it. The O-Ring on these filters is a non-issue compared to the waiting disaster with the poorly designed primer button seal.


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## jcbradt (Apr 4, 2020)

oh great, I just bought this filter and its less than 2 weeks old, this is what I am looking at in the future, fantastic!


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## Tiger15 (Jan 7, 2018)

This is why I do not trust or use any canister filters. You are lucky to discover it early and didn’t leak at night or when you were out that the leak could potentially drain your tank and flood your house. Any filtration system that has external plumbing, clamps and O ring is leak vulnerable. I use multiple Marinelaand Penguin for my 125 and 75 gal show tanks in my vulnerable living area and I only trust HOBs because, without external plumbing, they are leak proof.


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## Quint (Mar 24, 2019)

Just curious, why switch from a filter brand that lasted 10 yrs to an unknown quality (suspect quality IMHO)? If I had 10 yrs out of a brand pretty sure I would have gone with same or similar brand if available.


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## jcbradt (Apr 4, 2020)

so my Marineland 360, im only at day 10 on this thing, had a learning curve with the way the trays were orientated. Now that I have moved past this, I decided to open the canister early to move around some used media that I had and take down the HOB filter. Well, while I had it opened I decided to clean it, ok, not too bad. Then I put it back together, I ended up scraping the bio balls for the used media I had and after the learning curve with the tray orientation, I finally get it back together and its loud. Well I didn't have any more time to devote to it so I went to bed and got up early for work this morning and its even louder. If I could return it right now I would, as I have no faith in it working quietly and not developing a leak. 

My question is, do I scrap the canister filter all together? Others seem to enjoy theirs as it does a great job and is silent or do I bite the bullet and invest in a better quality canister filter like an Eheim Pro 4?? I will follow this thread for input.


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## donman (Dec 29, 2020)

For all you Marineland 160/220 users: I've researched this online and find that many pick up the leak after cleaning the filter. Look carefully at where your leak is. If you get a bigger leak when you tip the filter slightly it may not be the gasket is not seating although I too have made the mistake of having the bio balls too high on one side and not getting a good seal. First check that the gap is uniform around where the top seats on the body, that's how I picked up on the bio ball thing giving me a poor seal. What I have found is the shut off valve has o ring seals in the valves and this is the source of the leak. They leak into the head assembly and after about an hour you come back to find a puddle. Looking closely, you'll find double vent holes on the head and after about an hour the water rises sufficiently in the head that it starts running down the sides and LOOKS like a bad head seal. You can remove the top cover, using only 2 of the clips, plug in the hoses and see the leak is from the valve, into the top, and then down the sides. I picked up a millimeter o ring assortment from Amazon for about $10.00 which has like 20 of these rings. I own 4 of these filters and that has been the case with every leak. Funny, I've looked on Marineland's web site for 6 months and the $31.00 valve is never available. Maybe they think everyone will do like I did and buy a complete new filter. In all I own 5 of these now so I have a spare freshly rebuilt valve available for the weekend emergency. I think these really are good filters and online shopping will get you really low prices on filter floss and carbon bags. I would suggest to anyone who buys one of these to toss the hose they supply in the trash. It's not flexible at all and puts a constant strain on the o rings. I use the API/Filstar replacement hose which is very flexible. I also toss the jack leg clamps and use worm drive hose clamps I get from AutoZone. They have finger turns rather than screw heads, makes it easy to disassemble and run a brush thru the hose for cleaning. Hope this solves some of you issues!
Don


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