Gravel Vacuum
- Thread starter cdamouse
- Start date
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Mr. Limpet
Aquarium Advice Addict
cdamouse said:I just purchased a gravel vac. In about 10 min 10 gal of water was sucked out of my 20 ga. OMG!I only got 5"x5" clean. Is there a vac out there that pulls it out of the tank, filters it and puts it back. This is gonna kill my fish.
Depends on how big of a vac you bought, bigger isn't always better. I have one sized to get about 5g in 5-6 mins (I use buckets) for my 37g tall, but had to custom make one for my 8g.
As for cleaning, the idea is to remove water with excess ammomia, nitirtes and such, along with the detris. I do my vacuuming in sections and don't want to pull everything out at once as there's bacteria in the gravel that's good for the tank too. Planning out what part I want to clean up is pretty easy and I don't ever expect to get it all anyways.
I just bought a used tank setup that had an electric powered vac that catches detris in a fine filter and dumps the water back in the tank. I tried it once just to see, now it's in the garage sale pile waiting for our next one in May
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BigJim
Aquarium Advice Addict
My favorite LFS uses a big diatom filter to clean his tanks every couple months. It filters the water and puts in back in the tanks, but it's also huge (3'x2'x4') and lives on a wheeled cart.
As Mr. Limpet said, there are different vacuum sizes. I don't think you'll suck enough good bacteria out of the gravel to make a difference. Getting the fish waste out is more important.
Don't be afraid to drain more than 10g out of your 20g tank. If my tanks are particularly dirty, I'll vacuum them until there's just a couple inches of water left. If I temperature match the tap water pretty closely, the fish don't seem to mind.
As Mr. Limpet said, there are different vacuum sizes. I don't think you'll suck enough good bacteria out of the gravel to make a difference. Getting the fish waste out is more important.
Don't be afraid to drain more than 10g out of your 20g tank. If my tanks are particularly dirty, I'll vacuum them until there's just a couple inches of water left. If I temperature match the tap water pretty closely, the fish don't seem to mind.
