Housecleaning

[Bob]

I don't know, perhaps a dumb question for the more experienced reefers...... how do I vacuum the detritus out of the bottom of my sump? Its @ floor level and obviously no way to siphon. I can only think that a wet vac and draining the entire sump would be the way to go. I sure am hoping someone has a really neat easy way to accomplish this.

[Nitro Junkie]

I plan on buying an inexpensive small shop vac just for this. The only way to do mine is wet vac it out.

[lanman]

I don't know, perhaps a dumb question for the more experienced reefers...... how do I vacuum the detritus out of the bottom of my sump? Its @ floor level and obviously no way to siphon. I can only think that a wet vac and draining the entire sump would be the way to go. I sure am hoping someone has a really neat easy way to accomplish this.

 

I have a nice surprise for you... because of the hydrodynamics involved - you CAN siphon from your tank sitting on the floor. The siphon will stop when the water in the output bucket reaches the TOP of the water level in your frag tank. Not a strong siphon, but it's enough for me to siphon out the detritus in the bottom of the tank.

 

bob

[kngfisher]

if you do not think it will be a strong enought siphon, you could always buy a battery powered gravel vac.....

[flowerseller]

You can easily siphon from a floor level sump as Bob has learned.

I add 10g of water to my system which raises the level in my sump.

I then can siphon it back out rather well until the two water levels equal.

[scott711]

Use a small powerhead connected to a tube.

[Brian Ward]

Use a small powerhead connected to a tube.

 

Bob,

You can probably get a siphon going for a while. So it mostly depends on how much siphoning you need to do. I like the small powerhead idea, personally. Get one that has an intake you can attach a tube to, put the pump in the waste bucket and suck from the sump - same idea as the shop vac, but your sump is so tight I think you'd do better with small tubing instead of the shop vac.

~Brian

[jason the filter freak]

try a straw and suck. We sell really nice ehime battery powered vacs that are compact where I work but they're a pretty penny

[jnguyen4007]

My sump had so much nasty stuff in it before so I used a python to clean most of it out and it drained into the sink drainhole.

 

James

[yauger]

try a straw and suck. We sell really nice ehime battery powered vacs that are compact where I work but they're a pretty penny

 

 

I vote to try this option!!! sounds tasty!

 

I use a gravel vac to get the stuff out the bottom of my sump.... doesn't require to remove water so I can get the crud out at any time....