Ok so for a long time now I have been trying to find a good gravel vac - either DIY or store bought for getting all the fine mulm out of the top layer of substrate and in between plants in my tank and have been unsuccessful.
Basically I need something with low gentle flow that just gets the fine particles but whatever I have tried just ends up causing issues. It should be gentle enough not to pick up or disturb the substrate too much or uproot carpeting plants.
So I have tried :
1] My regular hose which I use for water changes but obviously its too powerful
2] One branded gravel vac with a flow adjustment valve. This would either break siphon if set to a slow enough speed or get clogged with uprooted plants and gravel if the speed was increased. Kind of a shitty designed one so again not too surprised.
3] DIY using various sized drink bottles with 8-10-12mm pipes. Ok but not the greatest
4] Most recently I tried a battery operated gravel vac - the common Chinese design one and not similar to the Eheim one. This held the most promise but still failed. The pump itself and the flow was gentle enough but when a pipe is connected to the outlet, siphon effect increases the flow rate and it clogs. The other option is to connect a mesh bag to the outlet and recycle and filter the water in the tank itself. This also failed because the mesh bag provided wasnt fine enough to trap mulm and just released it into the water column. Jerry rigging some cloth bags made them clog up in seconds and pop off.
Im sure most of us who have planted tanks have this problem and was wondering what everyone uses and recommends for this purpose. Looking for either DIY or store bought options and if a particular design is good.
Thanks in advance !!
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I was disappointed with this gravel vac and was going to toss it, so I decided to modify it to see if I could get it to work better.
The blue tube that connects to the head is way too long. Unless your tank is 5 feet above your bucket, it won't maintain a good siphon. I cut the blue tube back to a few inches with a hacksaw (see pic) and it made a world of difference. Drains nice and smooth now.
The white screen inside the vac head is a nice addition. It keeps chunks of gravel (or a fish) from winding up in the dirty bucket. However some dirt does get stuck on the slots, so it needs to be washed after use.
The valve at the end of the drain hose (see pic) is worthless. It's a good concept where you can slow down the flow for smaller tanks. But all it does is reduce the siphon where it either breaks with air or doesn't pick up gunk anymore. If you have a 10 gallon or less size tank, buy a smaller siphon than this one.
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