Gravel / Stone Cleaning? Hoovers?

[craftyfishlady]

I've seen a couple of comments from other members about *hoovers* for the tank gravel. Can anyone advise how useful these are etc and which are better brands etc?

I only have a small tank at the moment but will be getting a 2nd tank from a friend tomorrow.

Many Thanks

Kirsty
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[lock77]

I've seen a couple of comments from other members about *hoovers* for the tank gravel. Can anyone advise how useful these are etc and which are better brands etc?

I only have a small tank at the moment but will be getting a 2nd tank from a friend tomorrow.

Many Thanks

Kirsty
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I'd be lost without my gravel vac. I've had one from p.a.h for £7 and one off ebay for £1.50, both have done the same job. Handy as anything for water changes.

 

[tribalbrit]

plastic pop bottle and length of hose.... does the same job.

 

[craftyfishlady]

How does the bottle / hose work please? Sorry to be dense just can't quite picture what you'd do with it / how you'd use it!

Thanks!!

Kirsty
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[fluttermoth]

This is a gravel cleaner;

It's got a wide tube at one end; that bit goes in your tank, attached to a tube; the free end of that goes in your bucket.

You can either suck on the end of the tube, or you can coil the whole thing up and submerge it in the tank, turning it around so all the air is out. Once the air is out, put your finger or thumb over the small, pipe end and move that to your bucket. As long as the pipe end is lower than your tank, the water will flow out through a syphon action.

The wide, tank end, you stick into the gravel. The water from the gravel, along with all the poo gets sucked up into your bucket, but because the pipe is narrower it doesn't suck up the gravel; that just falls back into the tank.

You should be able to see from that pic that they're easy to make, using an old pop bottle with the bottom cut off for the wide, tank end bit, and a pipe or hose attached to the neck for the narrow bit.

Hope that helps; it sounds far more complicated trying to explain it than it really is!

You can get ones that work off a battery or air pump that, instead of syphoning the water out into a bucket, returns the water to the tank after passing it through a mesh bag that collects the poo, but I don't rate those; you're better off with a plain wide tube/narrow tube one, IMO.

I have the standard Algarde gravel cleaner, which I've been using for over 15 years

 

[craftyfishlady]

That's great thanks so much fluttermoth! Our gravel in our current tank is very fine so was a bit wary that it still may end up cleared out the tank as well lol!

I will certainly look at getting one soon

Kirsty
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[OldMan47]

Note that a standard gravel vac also has a check valve built into that transition piece between the wide and narrow tube. It makes it very easy to start the flow by simply moving the large tube up and down rapidly to start the siphon action. I have 2 different models with that check valve and a couple of cheap ones that do not have the feature. The cheap ones almost never get used because they are harder to get started.

 

[paulyoung666]

one thing i find useful is to have the rigid tube slightly longer than the depth of the water , then you have control over where you syphon from without having to get your hand into the tank itself ....

 

[craftyfishlady]

Thank you so much for that Our new tank is 17 inches deep so I don't fancy delving in that routinely for gravel filtering elbow deep in water lol!

Kirsty
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[JDs4me]

I use a length of 15mm filter hose with a kitchen funnel jammed in the end...and a pair of lungs to get the thing working, and a thumb on the end to control flow. It works a treat, picks up poo and leaves the sand alone.

I've noticed the funnel is no longer used in the kitchen...