I have a new tank that is low to the ground and my siphon doesn’t produce good flow for water changes.

It’s a bare bottom tank so I like to vacuum up the detritus that accumulates as well.

Does anybody have a recommendation for an electric pump/gravel vac that I could use to vacuum/do water changes?

  • @atx_aquarianEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    I use the Eheim “Quick Vac” to partially clean my sump tank. It gets a lot of solids out, but it leaves behind some fine particles. Since you don’t have a planted bottom and since it doesn’t sound like this is just a sump tank, I don’t think that pump will be quite enough for a good, safe cleaning for you, but I wanted to mention it.

    Note: Even though it doesn’t sound like you’re talking about a sump tank underneath (and exchanging with) a display tank, others who search might come across this for that scenario, so here’s more suggestions for that.

    I got it for cleaning my sump tank, which had some similar traits. Then I also have a valve on a T joint in my sump return pipe (in addition to a valve on the main path for the sump return) that I use to flush siphoned water through the sump tank and out a temporary drain hose to get the fine stuff out.

    So, on cleaning day, here’s what the whole process looks like:

    1. Stop the sump pump.

    2. Close the sump return valve.

    3. Use the Eheim Quick Vac to clean as much of the sump tank sediment as it can.

    4. Connect a drain hose to the extra valve on the “T” and open that valve. I run the drain hose out a window and into a large (50-gallon) trash can.

    5. Start the sump pump. This will start draining the now-agitated dirty sump water out the drain hose. For me, that starts filling the outside trash can with the dirty water (instead of returning it to the display tank to be filtered elsewhere).

    6. As the sump tank gets low, start siphoning from the display tank down into to the sump tank (using a siphon hose since nothing will be flowing down the weir). This will keep flushing the sump tank, getting more of the fine particles out.

    7. Then I use a “trash pump” submerged in the trash can to spray the drained water across my yard. Mine is a cheap submersible pump from Harbor Freight with a water hose adapted to it, but I just had that pump sitting around. There’s probably better options out there.

    Caution: This approach requires constant attention, turning the two pumps on and off to keep the sump tank and trash can from over/under flowing. But I’m changing 50 to 100 gallons at a time for my tank, so I might as well use all that dirty water as fertilizer for the yard. For a smaller tank, just running the water out the window or down a drain might make more sense, but I still prefer siphoning through the sump tank instead of straight out since that lets me flush more debris out of the sump.

    Sorry, I’m making lots of edits as I remember things.

    I want to add some kind of circulation pump to the setup, too (just during water changes), as the siphon flow isn’t quite enough to keep the fine particles from settling during this process. Keeping them suspended seems like it would help the sump return pump pick up even more of them and flush even more of them out the drain hose.