Simple Over Head polishing filter

[fhawk362]

So my uncle had an old little giant pump and I have a cracked bucket and I was going to do a water change and decided to try to make a polishing filter to get some extra debris when I gravel vac, so I put a tube on the filter, which led to the bucket filled with filter fiber that was on top of my tank, it seemed to work pretty well. here's some pics, nothing to it and a good little helper during gravel vacs cause the tank is already being stirred up. As you can see in the second pic it did a decent job of adding aeration as well. I've been thinking about doing this for an hob, something along the lines of a water pitcher so it will pour into the tank from hanging on the back, fill it with some scrubbies and filter fiber.

 

[sikoko]

nice

 

[Egon]

I don't understand? Your gravel vacuuming into a filter filled broken bucket? Why don't you just dump the gravel vacuumed water and put in new water? That way your doing a water change at the same time?
Get a Python water changer and dump that old water down the drain.

 

[john73738]

I catch hell but I gravel vac using my canister filter and dont do the traditional water change. Due to living in the desert I do appx 5g per month water change because of evaporation. That is it and my water perms are 0-0-0 every time. Every 6 months I will do a 20% wc. Fish are health and active.

Also my tanks are waaaaay over filtered also with a ton of bio filteration

 

[Egon]

I catch hell but I gravel vac using my canister filter and dont do the traditional water change. Due to living in the desert I do appx 5g per month water change because of evaporation. That is it and my water perms are 0-0-0 every time. Every 6 months I will do a 20% wc. Fish are health and active.

Also my tanks are waaaaay over filtered also with a ton of bio filteration

Hey if it works for ya that's great!
I live in the desert too and I just recycle my water. Clean water goes into the tank and the dirty water goes out to my yard. The plants love the fishy water especially the citrus trees. I was going to water the trees anyway so it's basically free, I just water the fish instead.

 

[fhawk362]

I don't understand? Your gravel vacuuming into a filter filled broken bucket? Why don't you just dump the gravel vacuumed water and put in new water? That way your doing a water change at the same time?
Get a Python water changer and dump that old water down the drain.

I guess I wasn't clear, I do this during water changes, this way I don't drain 50+ percent of the tank, only 25 percent yet I clean the whole bottom and during water changes being that I'm gravel vaccing alot of debris gets kicked up and floats around so this gets sucked up, cleaned by the filter fiber, then returned to the tank.

 

[john73738]

Someone correct me if I am wrong but I was told not the go crazy doing gravel vac'ing as it will mess up the BB that resides in the gravel. I found this out after doing a thorough gravel vac and my tank cycled.

Now I just lightly run the vac over the gravel ..


Bear

 

[BigFishMommy]

if you are running a UGF then you don't want to vac too vigorously (since the gravel is essentially your bio-media), but with say, a hob or canister, you can vac fairly good and the fish should be fine.

i do big w/c's on my oscar's tank and vac really good each time. he's healthy as can be and no spikes or mini cycles ever.

 

[redtailshark1]

water changes are best its like opening a window and letting fresh air in

 

[dawnmarie]

if you are running a UGF then you don't want to vac too vigorously (since the gravel is essentially your bio-media)

I'm not saying you are wrong(not even a little) but we may have different definitions of "Vigorous". I gravel vac my UGF every 7 to 10 days in what I would consider a pretty vigorous manner. I've never triggered a cycle. Perhaps how vigorously one is able to vacuum is affected by what other materials are in the tank and the external filters for BB to form on.
Am I just getting lucky or is my bio filter so large that i can lose a percentage during vacuuming ?