Aquarium Siphon / Cleaning Issue

[KTrain]

Greetings All,

I am the owner of a 150 gallon Deep Blue aquarium. It's the 48 x 24 variety for those of you familiar with their product line. Unfortunately, after I switched to sand as a substrate I've run into an issue with cleaning and maintaining the tank. The Aqueon siphon (commonly available everywhere) wasn't generating enough pressure to suck up the larger debris and fish waste. I decided that the best way around it was to build a home-brew siphon and use a transfer pump for increased pressure. I decided to go with a 390GPH pump that used garden hose fittings. Well, I just tested it today and it's still not picking up the larger debris and waste. What can I do to remove this from my aquarium? I'm open to new ideas and products.

Thanks in advance,
Kurt

 

[F1 VET]

Greetings All,

I am the owner of a 150 gallon Deep Blue aquarium. It's the 48 x 24 variety for those of you familiar with their product line. Unfortunately, after I switched to sand as a substrate I've run into an issue with cleaning and maintaining the tank. The Aqueon siphon (commonly available everywhere) wasn't generating enough pressure to suck up the larger debris and fish waste. I decided that the best way around it was to build a home-brew siphon and use a transfer pump for increased pressure. I decided to go with a 390GPH pump that used garden hose fittings. Well, I just tested it today and it's still not picking up the larger debris and waste. What can I do to remove this from my aquarium? I'm open to new ideas and products.

Thanks in advance,
Kurt

Sounds like you need to scoop out uneaten food after feeding, try the eheim quick vac, its electric and sucks debris up but puts water back, alot of guys that have sand use these. About 40-50$ at ur lfs. Also not sure what filtration you have but it sounds inadequate if its not sucking up stuff on the sand bed, maybe try lowering ur intake siphon 4-5 inch or use prefilter



#1 S. Vettel

 

[fhawk362]

You could also use some powerheads to kick up the debris into your filter, just be sure to not have it kick up too much sand but I always find sand in my filters and havent had any real issues yet and I've been using sand for over a year.

 

[camoconor]

By larger debris do you mean fish waste or food ?

If you mean food I'd recommend using a net to take out the larger pieces and the syphon to get the smaller bits


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[fhawk362]

By the way sometimes I use just a hose without the gravel thing cause it reduces a lot of the power, but without it it'll suck up some sand but take all the debris with it.

 

[KTrain]

Sounds like you need to scoop out uneaten food after feeding, try the eheim quick vac, its electric and sucks debris up but puts water back, alot of guys that have sand use these. About 40-50$ at ur lfs. Also not sure what filtration you have but it sounds inadequate if its not sucking up stuff on the sand bed, maybe try lowering ur intake siphon 4-5 inch or use prefilter



#1 S. Vettel

Both good suggestions. For the most part I'm talking about waste, uneaten food isn't a major issue in my tank. I will look into the Eheim quick vac.

 

[KTrain]

You could also use some powerheads to kick up the debris into your filter, just be sure to not have it kick up too much sand but I always find sand in my filters and havent had any real issues yet and I've been using sand for over a year.

I'm in the middle of a filtration overhaul that will allow me to lower my inlets much closer to the bottom. It's good to know others have had success with that.

 

[KTrain]

Thanks for all the great suggestions and advice so far!

 

[NitroDempsey]

I use the eheim quick vac in my tank I have gravel and I've heard and read many people saying its great or sand to, that's my recommendation, it's well worth the money.


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[KTrain]

Well, on the recommendation of multiple people I went ahead and purchased the Eheim quick-vac. The design itself is somewhat impressive. I've heard of it and seen it before, but I was skeptical that it would actually work. Unfortunately, upon attempting to use it my skepticism was validated. I can see how it might work for gravel, but so far it's been useless with sand. To this point all I've been able to do is get it to pick up sand. The device doesn't seem to have enough power to pickup any fish waste or particulates. It does however, continuously suck up sand. After about one minute of use the sand gets stuck in between the prop and the mount for the prop causing it to seize. Needless to say I'm disappointed with it so far.

I'm hoping to spend more time with it and see if I can get it to perform, but thus far I don't see how aquarium keepers using a sand substrate can find it effective.

That being said, it seems my only hope at this stage is to relocate the intakes for the filters that I'm currently installing and hope for the best. Hopefully I can find more guidance in maintaining a sand-based tank.