Using A Filter To Clean A Tank

[jmkgreen]

As the title says. My tank is 4x2x2 with Argos play sand. My cleaning regime involves Hozelock from the kitchen sink to tank, first shooting cold water in then detaching from the tap to provide the suction.

Problem is the hose gets clogged and doesn't provide much suction after a while, I have to keep chucking the tank end out the door and flushing it with tap water, then repeat the exercise.

I was thinking about getting a cheap external filter to suck the detritus out and pump the cleaned water back into the tank. My hozelock system can be draining meanwhile.

Anyone had success with this? I had a friend who said they did this with their big eheim, I'm not sure I want sand running through mine though - prefer a cheap one instead!

Looking at an eheim 2213 £42.90 off zooplus at the moment for the cause.

 

[Dskize]

I don't know if it's of any help but I use a standard gravel vac into a 100 litre container to clean, then use a pond pump to empty that and also pump the clean treated water back in ,it's very easy and the pump is pretty cheap , the gravel vac is only gravity fed though.

 

[OldMan47]

Sorry JMKGreen.
Simply cleaning the tank water of whatever is floating as particulate in the water will do you no good at all. You need to actually remove water and replace it with fresh water. It has a few benefits including removing nitrates and other chemicals that tend to build up and replenishing minerals that have been removed by plants or even by algae. It will also refresh any pH buffering capacity your tank water may have lost over time.

 

[jmkgreen]

OldMan I'm well aware of that. I wasn't for a moment suggesting that I would not be replacing the water. That simply needs to be another part of the maintenance.

 

[BigIan]

i often use a powerhead to kick start my hose, and i take the hoselock fitting off the end, as that was the part that was getting clogged up.

 

[waterdrop]

Ian may have your answer right up there.

I thought I remembered that there was a type of filter sold (at one time and in the USA, so might be limited to that, not sure) that we ran in to a few times in the beginners section where people had bought it as their main filter but it was inappropriate for that. I'm vaguely remembering it as a Marineland product (or something they relabeled) that had a big motor and was sold totally filled with carbon only and had a very high flow rate. I remember looking around and reading something that implied that its real use was for people going between tanks in fish rooms and doing big debris suckout jobs with it (some writeup by a guy on the web somewhere, so it seemed reasonable, just him explaining how he'd used it.) Gosh, I wish I could remember the name, I'm sure you guys would recognize it as you hear it occasionally. Oh, and I remember the whole thing as clear, circular and the motor in the middle I think.

WD

 

[OldMan47]

I have something like that WD. It is called a HOT magnum. The HOT stands for hang on tank. There is not much media to it but it can work wonders at removing debris and is very portable. I keep one running all the time on a heavily populated tank because it is so easy to move. If I have any real trouble with a filter in another tank, I can move that thing over to the other tank in a few minutes and it contains enough biological media to tide the tank over until I can get a proper filter for it.