A couple of months ago I refilled my CISS with some ink from Ebay. It printed fine, good colors, I didn't print for a couple of days, and the cyan, magenta and yellow were all clogged up. After a cleaning cycle everything was fine but if I left the printer sitting for a couple of hours the...
Sit the cartridge in a paper towel pad moistened with distilled water and let it sit for a while. Make sure the print head contacts the moist towel. It may dissolve the dried ink that is blocking the head.
If the contacts on the chip aren't clean, or the printer contacts they fit against are dirty you will get a issing or damaged cartridge message. It doesn't take much to cause this.
As long as the cartridges are holding the ink level the bubbles are nothing to worry about. Some of the ink in the lines drips into the cartridge and air goes in to replace it.
Find a feed store that sells agricultural supplies, they usually have needles and syringes for large animal veterinary use. You can cut off the sharp end if you want to. They are dirt cheap that way.
You will probably need to transfer the chips, be careful and it's not hard to do. My D5460 gave an empty cartridge warning a couple of times, you just push the OK button. It doesn't do that now, just keeps printing. I've done a lot of photo printing with no problems at all. Unless HP has changed...
I got my CISS here. I suggest you contact them for advice. I've had very good service and results from them.
http://www.supersmartelectronics.com/servlet/the-CISS-For-Epson-Printers/Categories
The tubes are high quality and the quality of the tanks is great. I don't know what inks your printer uses but the ones for my HP are excellent, the print quality is really impressive. I ordered more so I will have it on hand. I've been able to print more than I ever dreamed of, I just can't...
Try cleaning the electrical contacts on the cartridge and the printer.. On some of the HP printers the printer remembers an empty cartridge, but it can't remember more than 2. If you save old cartridges you can trick the memory by switching cartridges and running an alignment a couple of times.