DIY Sand Vac--NOT PYTHON

[oregonian]

Alright now for anyone who has stuck around its time for the advantages of this above and beyond what I expected.

Quick advantages:

1. Of course you don't empty any water, so you can spend as much time detailing as you want.

2. Filter bag! Get a bowl and a bunch of nylons and go to town. Accidently sucked up that plant? It ain't goin anywhere.

2.1Dslip this in)No clogging. Vac or your sink.

3. Although there's not a handle now this is really easy to move around. Gets in all those hard to reach areasDsorry couldn't resist).

4. Quick. Just think no priming, hooking up to sink probably with an adapter, (un)rolling up that friggin hose. 25' of tubing that just wants to coil or worse kink.
This was a HUGE help. While I was experimenting, I was rearranging the tank. Just left it running and if I moved a deco and disturbed some mulm, BAM, taken care of.

5. 3 and 4 combined. Since all your connected with is airline no bulky tube to pull around. Don't have to worry about securing while you go to adjust faucet.

6. Won't lose prime if you come out of water. Can move over supports, or just leave floating it if you want.

7. Very easy to adjust power with air valve. Place it wherever is convienient and can go from minimal to full blow without running back and forth, hoping nothing f's up while your gone.

8. Didn't even plan this but for some reason my fish could care less while i'm doing this. Some even seemed curious. I liked the sound.

Hmmmm... think thats it for average advantages. Next-and finally

The Cool Stuff-Siphons just SUCK! Give me a lift.(I think i just made myself sick)

 

[oregonian]

Finally, one more and I can sleep.

This is stuff I totally didn't forsee but turns out that using an air lift has some pretty cool advantages.

Remember the plants? I have java ferns and when they'd divide I would lose TONS during cleaning. Just have to keep going and hope they got caught in sink, and not jammed in the connector. Because of the bubbling and the plant leafs they mostly stay suspended inside the bottle. Maybe nothing great, but hey, I didn't lose any baby plants tonight.

Call be a dork but this thing is fun to watch. Between the bubbling up the tube, the pocket, the bubbles from the top, the swirling poo and the bag wobbling, I found myself LOOKING for crap to clean.

While it may not have a large intake you would think you would have to spend alot of time going back and forth but this thing can clean fast! I was practically just stirring the gravel with the tube and it just kept on goin. If I accidently kicked up some this will pull it right outa the water pretty easily-and like I said earlier its so easy to move you can just swing this thing around.
(You can lose lift if you tilt this too much, but i was getting under wood at about 45deg as still doing great.)

FINALLY-for anyone who stuck around the mostest special thing. No siphon or pump does this.

So the only concerns I had were about the angle thing which turned out to be no biggie and the sucking up of sand. Now this tank is gravel, some of it small but I still understand its not the same. Early on after seeing how the debris swirled in the bottle I thought about eventually setting up a way to let sand re enter the tank. The debris stays suspended for a little while since it has close to the same <b word for light in water?getting tired>. Sand and gravel will basically start falling as soon as they leave the tube. Basically I figured I could make something that had a hole close to the lift tube open to the tank which sand could fall into, and then have the bubbles create a mild current past that before dispersing that would drag the suspended debris to the bag.

Well here's what I thought was the best part. Because of the way a lift tube works, the closer the airbubbles come to the surface the less strength of lift is exerted. So the vac does pick up gravel with the debris, HOWEVER, the lift very quickly loses the ability to hold it suspended, and they fall. This is much like in a normal siphon except that it will not continue to suck them up unless you restrict the flow. Once you tune the air flow a piece of gravel will not go any farther up the tube.
BUT because the waste is relatively the same weight as water, it will continue to rise into the bottle.

You have to see it I think to really believe it.

Think of it like this. You take 2 balloons. First one stuff a little bit of cotton into and blow it up. Next, take the same size amount of sand and put it into te balloon and blow it up. BUT the important part is that this is by volume NOT weight. Now throw them both up and try to blow on them and keep em up.

I really hope you didn't put too much into them or that sand is gonna hurt.

Well g'night all. I'll be checkin in for comments and such. Thanks for bearing with me and there's always room for improvement so any ideas are welcome.

oregonian's air-driven vacsiphon vac. take that b----!wned:

 

[oregonian]

bump

no thoughts or comments, guess i'll just slink back into my ghetto thread.

go ghetto or go home

 

[streetthrowback]

lol, well i'm here, how is it holding up, i was looking to make one of my own or buy the eheim gravel vacuum one, not sure yet

 

[Lissaspence]

bump

no thoughts or comments, guess i'll just slink back into my ghetto thread.

go ghetto or go home

I know this is an old thread but I just have to say I like your ghetto inventions. You should be an engineer. you never did put up the video. I'm not to mechanically inclined so I would need as much help reporducing this as possible. I think it's fun to make stuff like this...It's too bad I suck at it.

 

[streetthrowback]

yea a video would be good