Diy Powered Gravel Vac

[supermonkey]

Hi All,

I am trying to make a powered gravel vac. I have a NewJet 800 power head & would like to connect a gravel vac to the inlet & then to the outlet I'm thinking of a filter bag full of filter media. The idea is that I can gravel vac with the dirt being trapped in the filter bag, & the water going back into the tank (I will of course still water change regularly).

I am struggling to work out what to buy to make this. Does anyone have any thoguhts?

Thanks

 

[supermonkey]

Has no one else tried this?

 

[Mauigirl]

I've been mulling this idea myself, Paying $50 + for the Ehiem quick vac
inst out of the question for quick touch ups, (I would still do regular siphon vacuuming at water changes.Or it could be possible to fit it for either a return to tank , or a direct to bucket fitting)
A loosely designed but effective idea on how to use a power-head to draw and feed water through floss and back into tank would be a god sent.
Need to be easy to handle etc.
I certainly think this is totally doable and worth bumping this up till someone gets tired of it and responds with at least a starting point

Edit: my thoughts include, the power-head, some under gravel filter tubing that would fit the intake and a strainer to hold the filter floss..
now how to transfer to the homemade strainer (and what to make it from.. maybe a pill bottle with holes drilled?) from the power head. Now straight back to tank.. or a deflector to keep any spray pointed down ( larger than intake polishing area and enough floss media should keep spray to a minimum), wouldn't want to build pressure I would think.
The vision I have is of a cane shaped tool..

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Marina make a battery powered vac that's about £16 in the UK, it can be a little tempermental but it does the job for me!

 

[Mauigirl]

Marina make a battery powered vac that's about £16 in the UK, it can be a little tempermental but it does the job for me!

I am leaning on spending the $$'s on the eheim one but my thrifty side was curious as to whether it could be built reasonably cheaper.

 

[supermonkey]

The things is that I can't see a battery powered vac being powerful enough! Surely a decent powerhead will be far superior

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

They aren't super powerful but if I'm not careful it will suck up my sand so it's plenty powerful enough!

 

[supermonkey]

They aren't super powerful but if I'm not careful it will suck up my sand so it's plenty powerful enough!

The reviews on Amazon don't look good though - I really want to make use of my pump and have something more powerful.

My power head is 800lpw & I hope to be able to fit a much bigger vac to the end.

 

[supermonkey]

Ok, so I put something together with what I have already.

I only tested it for a few minutes & you can see it did collect some dirt.

Not sure if the filter bag is good enough, probably either needs to be double layer or to be stuffed with filter wool. hopefully that wont reduce the flow.
The vac was cut up from an old cheap siphon. I would really like to replace this with something better ideally I'd like to cut the end off my Marina Gravel Vac & somehow connect it to the powerhead. Does anyone have any thoughts on how to do this, or how to improve it?

 

[supermonkey]

quick bump!

 

[supermonkey]

does anyone have thouths on this? I cant be the only person to be doing this?!

 

[Staxx]

for the cost of the powerhead and gravel vac you could buy a powered one though....

 

[supermonkey]

for the cost of the powerhead and gravel vac you could buy a powered one though....

I disagree with that. It cost me a fraction and the power head has other uses too.

I've added the new gravel vac (only a few quid).
It works well, ecvept that the filter bag I'm using is not fine enough. Can anyone recommend a really fine one?

Also I'd like to add switched Y pieces to the power head but not sure where to find some that will actually fit?! The idea is that I can permanently leave the filter bag on one end & hose to another so I can switch between gravel clean only & clean/siphon.