Vacuuming techniques

[Joel Armstrong]

Hi,

I am curious about people's techniques when it comes to vacuuming the tank.

I have been using a turkey baster with a short hose attached to the turkey baster and then syphon and vacuum into a 30 litre bucket. Empty bucket and repeat.

I'm guessing there may be a way to make this a little more convenient to avoid having to haul numerous buckets of water outside or to the sink?

Do you guys use a turkey baster?

What is your method when it comes to vacuuming?

What equipment do you use to vacuum?

Thank you for any feedback you're willing to share.

 

[Ed Wiser]

Both videos are the same

 

[Jellopuddinpop]

I've been pondering something for a while, and this might be a good place to ask... I have a small canister filter from previous tanks, and was thinking of just stuffing it with floss and using it as a "junk trap" before a water change. Basically, using the filter inlet as my vacuum hose and clamp the return to the rim of the tank. From there, I could vacuum as much as I want and never run out of water. Once I'm done, I can do a normal lazy person's water change and just let it drain down my sink.

My questions is this... The junk that comes out of the substrate is usually very, VERY fine. Will this junk get caught in the filter floss, or would I basically just be recycling it back into the tank?

I know I can use this method when trimming moss or HC to catch all the stray pieces that come off, but I've never tried it with vacuuming the substrate.

Thoughts?

 

[OmidNiav]

I've been pondering something for a while, and this might be a good place to ask... I have a small canister filter from previous tanks, and was thinking of just stuffing it with floss and using it as a "junk trap" before a water change. Basically, using the filter inlet as my vacuum hose and clamp the return to the rim of the tank. From there, I could vacuum as much as I want and never run out of water. Once I'm done, I can do a normal lazy person's water change and just let it drain down my sink.

My questions is this... The junk that comes out of the substrate is usually very, VERY fine. Will this junk get caught in the filter floss, or would I basically just be recycling it back into the tank?

I know I can use this method when trimming moss or HC to catch all the stray pieces that come off, but I've never tried it with vacuuming the substrate.

Thoughts?

I tried this a while ago to save water and clean everything better, unfortunately even with a bunch of filter floss I couldn't catch all the fine stuff. I might try again with more floss packed in. Let us know how it goes for you.

 

[*Ci*]

I just jam a plastic fork into the syphon tube. You can trim the tines to whatever depth you want. You then stir or dig in the substrate with it to disturb the debris. I control the flow by just pinching the flexible tubing to let the substrate get sucked up or spit back out - cutting off the flow entirely if I want to “rake” out the mounds.