Equipment Review and Discussion :: graval vac question

[blind44]

i have bed of small rocks (big enough so my turtles cant swallow) in my aquarium and im trying to find out which graval type vac works well. i purchased one of those graval vac that i need to shake really hard to suck the crap and water from the bed of the aquirium but it ended up just sucking out water and nothing else. is there a siphon vac that works well with small rock beded aquarium? i really want to clean out the food/poop/etc thats trapped in between the rocks to give my turtles the clean water they rightfully deserve.

lastly, does the battery operated graval vac work better than the ones you have to manually shake?

[Chrisbarnett]

Well you just shake it to get the siphon flow going. then you can stop shaking it.

But when I had river rock, what I did was bought about 10' of 1/4" or 1/2" tubing then used that to siphon out the crap. It worked well because the end was small and I could easily get under the river rock, and in the crevices. You have to suck on the tube to start it, but it worked great.

[blind44]

thanks chris, im gonna have to try that smaller tubing ones and see if it works better.

does the liquid graval vac things work and is it safe for the turtles?

[Daniel3507]

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... catid=3895

i have one of those that i use and it works really good. it sucks up all the debris but leaves the water in

[blind44]

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3728+3895&pcatid=3895

i have one of those that i use and it works really good. it sucks up all the debris but leaves the water in

its kinda expensive so i started researching this product online and saw a lot of good reviews from ppl who had 30+ gallon tank and lots of negative reviews from ppl with smaller tanks. i have a smaller tank so i was really skeptical but it was selling at the petco so i decided to just check it out and return it if it didnt do the job. man...was i surprised. this thing works beautifully, even for my small tank. i can literally see the crap and food debries being sucked up and getting trapped in the waste pouch while draining all the water back into the aquarium. i was also surprised to see both of my turtles not scared by this vac. they were more curious and were closely watching me vac the floor

thanx daniel for replying to my post and introducing this vac to me....

[Daniel3507]

no problem. my turtle is also very curious about it

[Listen97]

I have gravel on the bottom of my tank and have use a cleaner that normally would be used for a fish tank that I bought from Petsmart. it hooks up to the sink and uses the water to not only pull out the dirt and poo but also fills it up when done. Works great for anyone looking for something.

[Chrisbarnett]

take out your gravel..if your turt eats it, it can become impacted and die.

[Listen97]

they have lived with the gravel for 2 years now. i keep upgrading as they get bigger. moving in a few months and might go with sand, just unsure how to clean sand or how my filter will handle it.

[Chrisbarnett]

just because they have lived with it, doesn't mean they aren't eating it, or they could eat it.

check out the sand FAQ in the indoor section if youre interested.