Cleaning Sump
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Flippers4pups
Home made abyss
People do it all the time.
Tennismurph
Premium Member
what do you use to vacum the sand? thanks
Flippers4pups
Home made abyss
I use the tried and true gravel vac and hose.
Vinny Kreyling
Premium Member
A Gravel Vac, sold in all pet stores in various lengths.
paparchasa84
New member
NanoReefWanabe
Active member
the majority of what you see collecting in the bottom of your sump is detritus, otherwise known as fish poop and decomposing fish food...there is no way keeping any of that in your system is at all good for it...
personally i would remove as much of the cyano bacteria as i could and add a little more flow to your refuge to eliminate this from happening again, as for the GHA, nothing wrong with it being there, though i would remove large portions of it weekly, this will drastically increase nutrient export from your system and better the health of everything in it...as for the wet vac routine in the sump, there is no reason you need to remove all the water from the sump....you the vac to make sure you get all the crap that has collected in the corners and dead spots, and make sure while doing this you remove as much water as you plan on replacing..
this is exactly what i do...my sump is 7g and holds about 5.5g of water when running...it is two chambered, i simply use the gravel vac hose (i remove the end so it is just the hose) and siphon out all the settled out poop in each chamber, by the time i am done getting all the detritus out i have about 2g of water, i then siphon out about .5g more and i am ready to add my fresh 2.5g of saltwater...(so the sump is now 50/50 fresh and old when i fire the pumps back up.)
i also take this time to change out one of my two bags of chemipure, and change out my filter floss...i have had a bag of purigen in my tank for over a year and it has yet to change colour or anything, i have it wrapped around the intake strainer of my pump with a rubber band) so needless to say i havent changed it out yet...i only change water about once every 2 or so months...(filter floss gets changed out every three days...)
paparchasa84
New member
Thanks ill be doing that when I do my chane this week getting my new etss super reef devil skimmer and will be adding more flow thru my fuge by opening my mag 9.5 return valve more. With the wet vac won't I decimate the pod population though?
Tennismurph
Premium Member
My sump is a 1 micron filter sock hanging over a 100
gal fiberglass rubbermaid horse trough with 100lbs live rock in it. I never clean it other than water changes. It's tough to access. Do you think I need to pull the rock & vacuum it?
gal fiberglass rubbermaid horse trough with 100lbs live rock in it. I never clean it other than water changes. It's tough to access. Do you think I need to pull the rock & vacuum it?
You can't.
I ducktape 1/2" vinyl tubing to the end of my shop vac hose to suck out the gunk. Just put a hole in the tape so you can put your thumb over it to kinda control the power of the suction.
Don't forget to check the water level in the vac cause it gets heavy.
kevin32
Member
This is what that gets me. There no easy way to clean a sump. I try siphon and it never works. Sigh....
Anyone else got an easy way to clean sump .
The shop vac and vinyl tubing is as easy as you're going to get. Takes 1 min to setup and you're good to go.
cloak
New member
Right before I do a water change, I just use a powerhead to stir everything up in the sump. The majority of the detritus gets pumped up to the DT, but then get's removed on the way back down by a filter sock. The rocks in the DT are also cleaned with the powerhead before any water is taken out. If you do this on a regular basis, there really won't be anything to clean from week to week. Also, I seem to get a great feeding response from some of the corals when this is done. They seem to dig the occasional detritus storm. HTH.
MellowReefer
New member
I have a bubble trap in my sump right before the return portion, and I put filter floss in there also so that I just use the powerhead in my refugium to blow all the detritus which then gets caught in the filter floss I'm going to clean/replace when I do the water change. For the skimmer part I just wave my hand around to bring all the detritus into the water to eventually get stuck in the floss. I dont use a siphon, I just use a water pitcher to take the water out, each time I take it out I use it to stir up the bottom water once again so I get all the detritus. For me the shop vac is just one more piece of equipment to take up space in my small house. Using this method in theory should let more pods survive the water change than get sucked up with the shop vac. When I stir up the detritus I'm hoping they swim back to the bottom rocks but I still get the detritus.
