I am very bad a gravel cleaning- I tend to loose a LOT of water so I purcased the Penn PLax battery vac because it just sucks the debris into a filter bag and you keep your water. Well I am not an engineer but I am 99% sure I have this thing together correctly. The batteries work, the impeller is spinning and is not clogged, all the tubes are connected as tightly as I can get them without breaking the plastic... Other than what was printed on the box there were no instructions. I am thinking (you knew your smelled something burning) that I am missing some very basic step that they assume everyone knows. It has a waterline marker so I know how high to hold it. Do I submerge it completely before starting it? Anyone have success with this? Thanks for your guidance!
gravel cleaning help
- Thread starter Discofish
- Start date
well I apoligize but I have never heard reference to or seen one of these things, so I can't help with that problem.
But when you say you lose a lot of water, what do you mean? When you do a water change you should use a gravel vac to suck up any particles stuck in the gravel, and at the same time be removing at least 25% of you water. If you never change the water you will not reduce the harmful chemicals in the water like ammonia and nitrite, and when you top up your water due to evaporation you will be raising the level of heavy metals in the water. Can you explain what you mean by losing a lot of water for me please?
But when you say you lose a lot of water, what do you mean? When you do a water change you should use a gravel vac to suck up any particles stuck in the gravel, and at the same time be removing at least 25% of you water. If you never change the water you will not reduce the harmful chemicals in the water like ammonia and nitrite, and when you top up your water due to evaporation you will be raising the level of heavy metals in the water. Can you explain what you mean by losing a lot of water for me please?
I do 15% water changes about every 10 days, my tank is 35 gallons. The few times (like 3) that I did a standard syphon gravel cleaning I lost at least 50% of my water.
It has been explained to me that I probably was cleaning too much of the gravel at once and that I should only do about a quarter of the gravel per cleaning but the process was so messy and time consuming that I never really went back to doing it...
I did try my battery opperated vac again this afternoon and it sucked up a little but with such a tiny amt of suction I could have left the chamber over the same gravel spot for 5 min... sorry to ramble on... thank for any help you can offer
It has been explained to me that I probably was cleaning too much of the gravel at once and that I should only do about a quarter of the gravel per cleaning but the process was so messy and time consuming that I never really went back to doing it...
I did try my battery opperated vac again this afternoon and it sucked up a little but with such a tiny amt of suction I could have left the chamber over the same gravel spot for 5 min... sorry to ramble on... thank for any help you can offer
It is my opinion that you can't lose "too much" water when cleaning the gravel. I routinely drop 50-60% of my water (on a weekly basis) while vaccuuming. No harm, no foul.
If it's physically too much water and you aren't wanting to carry buckets that many times or something, just do what you can until you are done removing water and don't worry about it. If you are stocked properly this should keep the tank good and clean.
I'll add that removing water is GOOD as it lowers the nitrate levels in the tank, as well as makes sure that concentrations of any other chemicals remain relatively constant. As ishar mentioned, if you aren't removing enough water on a regular basis you can end up with some toxins building up in the water, as evaporation only removes pure water, not any impurities.
If it's physically too much water and you aren't wanting to carry buckets that many times or something, just do what you can until you are done removing water and don't worry about it. If you are stocked properly this should keep the tank good and clean.
I'll add that removing water is GOOD as it lowers the nitrate levels in the tank, as well as makes sure that concentrations of any other chemicals remain relatively constant. As ishar mentioned, if you aren't removing enough water on a regular basis you can end up with some toxins building up in the water, as evaporation only removes pure water, not any impurities.
That's great news because I don't mind the 50-60% water loss I just though the fish minded... refilling is not a problem I can mange that if I know it's expected.
Clearly I was under the wrong impression...
If I can do my crappy job of gravel cleaning and it's not messing up my tank then I'll be my old crappy (and now happy) self.
THANK YOU!
Clearly I was under the wrong impression...
If I can do my crappy job of gravel cleaning and it's not messing up my tank then I'll be my old crappy (and now happy) self.
THANK YOU!