Best way to vacuum!

[Paulcha11]

Hey guys,

Possibly a question everyone at some stage has thought about, but does anyone know of a way to vacuum/syphon your fish waste from your substrate without sucking half the sand up? Is there a way where the waste can empty out and the sand that does go up get collected somewhere?

Cheers

Paul

[Chuckmeister]

You could either get a longer vacuum or maybe cut in a tap on the hose to reduce flow.

[LexyBoi]

Just use a normal hose none of that nonsense on the end, then suck from the out end to get the siphon going! It is much more powerful and concentrated so you have accuracy and power!

[Josh]

Pay more attention to how much substrate you have in the vacuum. You could vacuum into a bucket and that way what ever is sucked isn't dumped onto the ground

[Link2Hell]

just crimping the hose will adjust the flow if you pick too much up or if its something fine like sand

if you clean into a bucket finger over the end of the hose stops things

[Buccal]

Get a tall white bucket and incorporate fine mesh a quarter of the way down from the top.

Syphon water onto the mesh in bucket.

Water will fall through to bottom and leave sand in mesh to be returned to tank.

A stretched new stocking should work.

Your always going going to have problems with sand,,, if you reduce flow to not pick up sand then it doesn't pick up waiste all that effectively.

Increase flow and sand comes up with it.

It may be beneficial for you to play around with low wattage power heads to create a gental flow in tank that never allows crap to settle any where by eliminating dead spots.

The crap ends up in the filters.

I've never vacuumed a display tank in my experienced life of fish keeping 20+ years, and 6 years before the the 20 years of being inexperienced was still finding my way.

Maintenance on aquariums can be reduced to amazing lows when set up correctly.

[Ged]

You can install under gravel jets to concentrate the waste into certain parts of the tank. The waste accumulates in the eddies and make cleaning easier.

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ug_jets.php

[Paulcha11]

Thanks to everyone for their replies.

Yes I think there is a little bit more tweaking I need to do to get things right, or at least better. Gone was the thought of just having to do a water change weekly and filter clean monthly! I guess now that is one of the goals of fish keeping, to make things run as stable and as smooth as we can.

This vacuuming thing can't keep going on like this. The fact that I have black substrate and a 32 inch deep tank doesn't help matters! Thats experience for you and when Buccal states he was still fine tuning after 6 years I guess I have a bit to go.

But with the generous help I am getting from members on this site I can only hope the transition is a steady one.

Cheers guys.

Paul

[Phenomena]

Hi Paul,

I use a section of PVC pipe, a little bit longer than the height of the tank. Attach the hose to it. I also have a valve to regulate the flow if I need to and it helps to start the siphon without sucking it with your mouth. (Pipe--->hose--->valve--->hose).

My display tank has river sands. They're very light and can get sucked easily. Over time the fish waste/detritus also become attached to sands.

What I do is I hover the end of the pipe just over the sand to vacuum the waste. Generally they're lighter than sands. If they've become attached, I stop the flow and stir about with the pipe to loosen it. Then restart vacuuming. No doubt some sands get vacuumed as well. But they're cheap to replace and plenty in the tank.

A step further is to wrap around brush or gutter guard or something at the end of the PVC pipe to act as a stirrer/comb. So, when you vacuum, it touches the sands. As you drag along vacuuming, it will lightly disturb waste/detritus.

Nowadays, I don't even bother to vacuum the waste when I do WC. I rely on the filter to take care of it.

[Cichlid Pom]

I use crushed coral and with the extra grain size and a 24" siphon tube have an easy time vaccing