[baza]

hi

I have just got a new gravel cleaner it is 60cm long and 6.4cm in diameter and oval shape. I tested it the other day in my 6ft tank with frustrating results. I had no rocks in there just gravel. I only managed to get not even a quarter of my tank done before i started running out of water in my tank 750litres!!!! i noticed the gravel kept getting clogged up in there. Are you meant to push these things right into the gravel or are you meant to just skim over the top layer of gravel. how are you meant to do the whole tank before it runs out of water from the siphon? Do you pull the rocks out everytime? My tank is completely covered in rocks so there is very little gravel showing. Should i just clean the exposed gravel or remove all the rocks every week?

thanks

 

[gunnerx]

I don't think you have to clean every single square inch of your gravel. Usually if you have some sort of flow, all the waste will gather in certain areas. These are areas to concentrate on with vacuuming. On my 6ft tank, I have a power head on one end that blows a lot of the waste from behind the rocks to the other end to make it easier for me to clean. A lot of people here setup an Under Gravel Jet system to blow the waste around and have the filter system take care of most of it and minimize vacuuming.

 

[natalie559]

6.4cm in diameter

I only managed to get not even a quarter of my tank done before i started running out of water in my tank

The wider the diameter of the gravel cleaner the more water you will remove during cleaning. If you find yourself running out of water without having a clean substrate I would either use a tube that has a smaller diameter or concentrate on say half the tank and the next week do the other half of the tank.

Are you meant to push these things right into the gravel or are you meant to just skim over the top layer of gravel.

With gravel, yes, you are supposed to plunge it into the gravel. With sand you can simply skim the surface of the sand.

Do you pull the rocks out everytime?

No. I clean around them and you can use a powerhead or your water return to get flow and debris from under the rocks to where you can reach it. Taking out the rocks occasionally is good to do but I would never do it every time.