NOOB sand vacuuming questiong

[greg683x]

Ive been trying to vacuum my sand bed as best as possible, just stirring up detritus thats laying on the surface during my water changes, but I have a really hard time getting the stuff to fully suck through the tube and into my dirty water bucket. Usually what happens is it gets pulled up and starts shooting around in the initial plastic siphon cylinder then eventually settles back down to the bottom. I really gotta stick the siphon all the way into the sandbed to pull this stuff out, which I dont wanna do bc im gonna suck out a ton of sand just for a few pieces of detritus and most likely end up clogging the tube.

anyone run into this before? do I need to use a bigger siphon tube to generate more flow going out?

 

[RobZilla04]

Your sand must be pretty fine/light if you are sucking up with the siphon. Try going deep into the sand bed for a second or two and slowly lifting the siphon tube up. This will allow the heavy substrate to sink and the detritus to get lifted up the tube. You should get a fair amount of disturbance and movement while the substrate is in the large end of the siphon.

 

[greg683x]

i can give that a try again, the last time i did though, i ended up with a clogged tube

i almost feel like I have too small of a siphon tube. it's half inch tubing and the large plastic cylinder is probably about 2"

 

[Clowning_Around]

.5 inch should be fine. I bought a silly stupid cheap vacuum as a separate piece of equipment to use with my QTsystem. Not for same but to pickup uneaten food to avoid ammonia spikes the next day. Point is I had a similar issue at first with it, it actually had a insert piece that was a plastic screen to keep from sucking up fish, once I remove it, it worked like a champ, it only has a 3/8 House on a 1.5-2in sized head.

Made sure you prime the line fully before you start so you get a good siphon pull. Then gently light straight up hovering letting smaller lighter paddocks lift away and the heavy sand to sink. Them rinse repeat so to speak.

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[dublo8]

your siphon isn't fully started if it drops back down. I have several siphon tubes and all work just fine. If it has a bulb on it keep squeezing it til' you get a good flow. I will usually stick it far into the sand bed, let it sit for a second and move on to another spot. I have some pretty coarse sand and it will pull it through the tube if I'm not careful.

I don't think your clogging the tube, I think your siphon is stopping due to air being introduced into the tube through a connection or your not going full bore with the siphon.

 

[Lsufan]

It sounds like u have a finer sand. If that's the case then if u want to syphon the sandbed u are going to syphon some sand out. It usually isn't much but it will be some. It probably has a filter at the top where the hose attaches & once it picks up so much sand it will clog. All u have to do is put your finger over the end of the hose & the sand will fall back out. Once it does & u take your finger off the end of the tube u should still have a syphon.

Going over the top of the sand it will do like u are saying, it won't pick it all up. U really have to submerge the tube into the sand & it makes the suctionninside the tube a lot stronger. If u aren't cleaning the hole sandbed & don't want to submerge the tube all the way then just submerging it 1/2" or so into the sand should get a good suction.

 

[Clowning_Around]

If it helps visually youtube has many videos on this, which if a picture is worth a thousand words a video had got to be worth one hundred thousand

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[ktownhero]

You can just siphon not worrying about sand and catch it in a bucket -- put the sand back. You could even clean it before putting back if you want.