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I have a waterfall filter I have a problem and a question about it. My question is about how it works. Does it work by sucking the water from the tank and cleaning it inside the filter then releasing it? My problem is that I have to put in water for it to put out water. If I don't put in any water it doesn't work. The water is over the openings at the tip where it sucks in the water.

If it is like most "waterfall" filters I have dealt with, it is a fairly simple device. Like most filters, all it does is suck water up and pump it through some filtering mechanism (carbon and the white filter material for the most part), which then just falls out the front of the filter. The reason it needs the water in it before it will work is because it doesn't create enough suction to suck up more water if the pump is surrounded by air.

The opening at the bottom of the tube (The part that goes in the water.) is in water but will only suck it up a quarter or half the way. It won't go through unless I put water in at the top of the filter. My question is do I have to do that? Or is there something wrong with my filter?

That is normal, provided you don't mean you constantly have to do that. You should have to do that, at most, every time the filter turns off or power goes out. If the filter runs fine, with water flowing after you fill the top of the unit with water, then you have nothing to worry about. And be sure to read the manual on your filter if it came with one. If it didn't come with one, use google "<filter name> manual".

It sounds like it's not primed correctly. Make sure that the filter is level and not at a slant or tilt. The AquaClear requires you to add water, then plug it in.

eazyegee wrote:I have a waterfall filter I have a problem and a question about it. My question is about how it works. Does it work by sucking the water from the tank and cleaning it inside the filter then releasing it? My problem is that I have to put in water for it to put out water. If I don't put in any water it doesn't work. The water is over the openings at the tip where it sucks in the water.

Yup, that's how the waterfall filters work. You have to put water in the filter to kinda "get it going".

I put in water but after like a couple hours it stops filtering. Is this normal, or is there something wrong?

How far down does the water fall into your tank? Take a look also at your tube where the water gets sucked up into the filter. You have various joints where you can add more tubes to make it longer & reach the water better. Well, if the water level is below one of these joints, then you may be sucking air into the water intake tube which will cause it to stop running after a while.

The guys at the pet store told me that if you have any joints exposed on the water intake tube, you have to completely seal them with aquarium grade silicone in order to stop the air from being sucked up into the tube. Or the other choice is to raise the water level so that all the joints of the water intake tube are covered by water. That will keep it running.

What kind of waterfall filter do you have?

If air was getting into the intake pipe, you'd most likely hear it. The extension I made for one Aquaclear tube requires that the water be above where the two pieces connect (they're not airtight) or the noise the filter makes trying to suck up air is really loud and raspy.

When you say it's not filtering, does it actually stop? Does the output drop significantly? If so, it sounds like there's something clogging the filter.

i found that aqua clears are quite airtight in there fittings(myn are anyway) but my whispers are not...i solved this by silicone's the point where the extension is attached and it works even above water

The Aquaclear filter pieces on the filters I have are tight. I had to use a different tubing on one in addition to the fittings to get the intake where I wanted it, though--that's not airtight. I don't want to silicone it because I want to be able to take it apart to clean it.