Cant Get My Gravel Vac To Work

[jackel931]

does anyone know what type of gravel vac is good to use on sand? I have some frontosas and I cannot seem to pick up their drooppings it starts to go up and then drops oout of the gravel vac. very annoying. i even bought a good one from Marina called easy clean. does anyone have any tricks to making it work?

 

[shroob]

I think the problem you have, is that you are using the attatchment that widens the tube, if you remove it then you will have much more sucktion power.


Theres even a video about it:
http/www.cichlid-forum.com/videos/cleaning_sand.php

 

[Spooky76]

Dont you want to lessen the suction power ? As sand is very light ? I thought the problem was sucking the sand up.....

 

[jackel931]

no i have down the technique of swirling the vac over the sand to pick up the droppings but once the droppings get scked into the tube they sit there then slowly fall back out... very frustrating

 

[jennybugs]

Do you have a battery operated vac or a gravity operated one? I have an aquavac battery powered one and a syphon type one. I find the syphon one with a 'bulb' to prime it works better with my sand than the battery operated one, and the opposite for my tanks with gravel

 

[jackel931]

by the way great video! im going to try that today.

i have a gravity operated one... that works better for you?

 

[jennybugs]

i have a gravity operated one... that works better for you?

My manual vac is a Reef One syphon type and I find that perfect for sand. My only tank with sand substrate is a small 20L one but the syphon is easy to use and can be controlled by varying the level of the collecting bucket to alter speed of the water.

I tend to sift through the sand after an initial vac as in the video and then give another run over, hovering about an inch above the sand The first time I tried my battery vac I removed way too much sand as well