Anyone here ever made a DIY tank vacuum?

[Tanster2]

I remember reading a thread a few months back where a guy made a sort of vacuum cleaner from a small pump. He never had to take the pump out of the water, but If I recall he placed a filter sock over the the nozzle and effectively was able to siphon out tons of detritus without ever having to remove the water from the tank. The vacuum could also be left in the tank for a few hours at a time cleaning.

Anyone ever made anything like this?

 

[ichthyoid]

I used an Eheim cannister filter to make a gravel vacuum, years ago.
It worked pretty well, as long as you kept up with gravel vacuuming regularly.

 

[Tanster2]

I used an Eheim cannister filter to make a gravel vacuum, years ago.
It worked pretty well, as long as you kept up with gravel vacuuming regularly.

Do you happen to have a build thread anywhere for it?

 

[ichthyoid]

No, it was way before the ARC existed.

I just hooked up a gravel vacuum tube, about 2 inches diameter, to the intake tube of the canister filter.

Then layer filter media starting with coarse & increasing to finer from intake to output. That way it filters according to size of the gunk & takes longer to clog up.

After use, remove the media, rinse well and dry for re-use.

 

[Anthony king]

Have a fluval 405 i use the same way

 

[Tanster2]

Thanks guys, I'll look more into this. Shouldn't be too terribly hard to rig one up with what I've got at the house.