hey guys, I been messing around with gravel vacs, trying to make a vaccum that will successfully vaccum the gravel and replace the water back into the tank. The purpose of this is to vaccuum low volume tanks, without having huge water loses. water changes are great, but in some smaller tanks there just isn;t enough water to do a good vaccuum. ANy ideas?

you can use just the hose and get what you can..... If they are planted tanks you don't need to worry so much...... you can also Vaccume in a a four section pattern. Divid the tank into 4 sections and only vac one section at each water change, in 4 weeks you will have vac the whole tank...... Depending on how deep the tanks are they do sell a battery power vac, I never used them but you looking for ideals

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Gold Coast Aquarium Society South Florida
www.goldcoastaquarium.org

im mostly looking for ideas on how to filter the water of debris before its recycled into the tank.

your not doing a water change at all, because in small tanks that is the most imprtant thing over all others......you could turn off your filter and use a powerhead with hoses attached to both side of the pump and pump the water into that and let the filter catch all the large stuff, and then flow back into the tank..... I know Aquaclear PW's have a flow control switch. .......

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Gold Coast Aquarium Society South Florida
www.goldcoastaquarium.org

been using a powerhead pump and sending the water into a coke bottle full of fiber. then that drips backinto the tank. its just that its bulky


btw, i still do 70% water change / week
on my guppy tank.(the small one)

70% is way to much... 20% would be the most

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Gold Coast Aquarium Society South Florida
www.goldcoastaquarium.org

70% us fine,, even 90% is ok if the water specs match up and/or the refill is super slow.

Besides its almost impossible to do 20% and vacuum more then and inch of gravel. but anyhow...

I not going to argue with you but IMO you are wrong on so many levels. So I will take my 30 years of exp. and all my knowledge, all the books I read, all the mistakes I made, all the experts I talked with about fish health and water quailty, and know that my fish live full and healthy lives. 70% is way to much, first you will never get water temps to match (stress the fish) second you are taking most the ben. bac. when you gravel vac 70% of the water out, sending the tank into a mini cycles (stresssing the fish), but hey what works for you will not work for others.

Good luck with your aquariums and your pond.

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Gold Coast Aquarium Society South Florida
www.goldcoastaquarium.org

been thinking about what you said about over vaccuuming.. What you say does make sense, especially when you use a small load filter.

Is the ben bac, free umm.. floating,,, ah.. does it live in the water as well as the surfaces?

because the way i figure is that a big water change shouldn;t effect it if you don;t over vaccuum (disregarding the PH and temp specs)

check out my thread DIY canister filter you can make maybe a one gallon canister

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Use a smaller diameter vacuum on the gravel. It takes more time, but you pump out less water. That's what I do.

I made a tool that I use for general cleaning. I took a standard gravel vacuum/siphon and cut the tube in half. In that spot I spliced in a 12 inch long piece of 2 inch wide PVC pipe with end caps. Inside the pipe a keep a bag of carbon and a bunch of filter floss. I run the vacuum, it goes through the floss and carbon and into a bucket. I then add the water back to the tank.

I also use this method the get water to start new tanks and add the floss from the vacuum to the new tanks filter.

Pretty cool idea Dave!