A question first, is the toilet the only thing draining slow or not at all? If you are not having a backup from any other device while trying to drain a large amount of water, i.e. tub, shower, dishwasher, or washing machine draining slowly, then the clog is likely localized to the toilet only. Roots or some other clog in the main drain line would, in theory slow down the whole system.Ridex is a product to promote the bacterial function of a septic tank and would not unclog a toilet and other drain cleaners should be avoided in a toilet because of their caustic nature and danger of splash back. My thought, if the toilet is the only thing draining slowly, is one of 2 things, you have a stubborn small item trapped in the device itself that clears and floats back to clog, I had a plastic bottle cap in one of mine once as an example, and secondly something has caused your tank to not refill with enough water to make it flush. Look at the water level in the tank and see if it is up to the water line stain inside from past levels or, as odd as it might sound, try flushing the toilet with a bucket of water poured slowly into the bowl until it flushes, instead of flushing it with the tank. Try this when the toilet has not been used so that you are dealing with clean water but you should not have to over fill the toilet to get it to flush. Obvioulsy if this works there is no clog but instead a problem with your tank float which is not allowing enough water to fill the tank and to provide enough water to flush.

Good advice from faucetman. Yes, pour a bucket of water into the clean bowl and see how easily it flushes.

After it swirls, does it do a slow gurgle, etc as the water goes down? If so, sounds like something got in the trapway that wasn't supposed to, and it's now stuck in the bottom of the toilet. That would require it to be removed to see what's stuck from the bottom.

Afterward, if you were happy enough with the toilet, just put the same one back. But since someone has to do some work anyway, you could use it as an excuse to install a new one.

Thank you all for your advice I will try the bucket thing. Faucetman this is the only thing draining slow in the house.

Well if its the only thing draining slow its got to be a localize clog or toilet malfunction as I said. Let us know how it goes.

Faucetman,

What's your thought on this random idea (based on one of those internet solutions for removing rings from sinks)?

1) Remove most of the water from the bowl with a plastic cup 2) set up a shop/vac for wet pick-up (remove any paper filters within) 3) place pantyhose over end of hose (screening), and seal around the end of the hose with a wet rag, and 4) turn it on? Do you think that would pull up an object with the water? Just might be worth a try. (Safety is a consideration, admittedly.) It might be hit or miss thing, if the object is longer than wider, requiring a series of efforts.

Just a thought.

It certainly might work for some things.In the case of the bottle cap in mine we had to remove the toilet and fish around from both ends by hand to find the culprit.

I will let you know how it goes, but we have no kids so i am not sure how anything got down in there.

anything on the back of the toilet that could have accidentally fallen in?