siphoning sand bed/sump floor for debri

[TommyP]

This is probably a stupid question but since running filter socks for a while when I had my 55 set up was such a pain in the neck I decided to just let the LR and skimmer do the work. I have noticed some debri resting on the floor of my sump in the fuge area and want to siphon this out as part of my normal weekly/bi-weekly maintenance. How do you guys remove this junk without completely draining your sump?

How do you "vacuum" the sand bed without pulling so much water from the DT?

sorry for the newb question.

 

[troywalkerphoto]

Easy. You know those pain in the *** filtersocks? I clamp a drain hose to my sump which empties into the sock in the first chamber. I turn the skimmer up a but to almost wet skim. Then I go to town on the syphon hose. Anything that gets past that sock (which is nada unless the sock clogs up) goes into the fuge and settles to feed the macro algae I have there. I finish with a good turkey basting of the rocks and allow the syphon to clear that as well.
It sucks out all the gunk buildup and I keep 97% of my water volume. Simple.
LMK if that works for you!

 

[TommyP]

I can't use the siphon that I have because it's gravity fed, and the sumps on the floor. I bought one of those bucket head vacuums that snap on the top of a 5 gallon bucket. Wondering how I can do this since it'll take 2 seconds to vacuum the sump. But then all the crap goes into the bucket, water and all...

That would work for the sandbed!

 

[Jaftica]

Get a bucket head vacuum from home depot, they work great and are dirt cheap

 

[TommyP]

Get a bucket head vacuum from home depot, they work great and are dirt cheap

I have one of those. Just want to figure out how to vacuum all the crap out but not take away all the water...

 

[Jaftica]

attach a small diameter hose to it

 

[troywalkerphoto]

Well that means you will have to cut power and clean the sump. There is nothing for it once it gets that far down the system. You cant power head it bcuz it will get back to the display. It will break down eventually. Eventually...Run a longer sock or if you can upgrade split the downflo and run two or more socks.

 

[troywalkerphoto]

Swwweeeeeet

Get a bucket head vacuum from home depot, they work great and are dirt cheap

++++1 just went to homedepot site. 22.00 bucks! Sweet!

 

[TommyP]

++++1 just went to homedepot site. 22.00 bucks! Sweet!

Yeah, he told me about it a while ago and I went and bought it. It works great when I had to empty my sump during the transfer.

I think what I'm going to do is I have 3 pieces of LR in the fuge part but I have no macro algae in there yet so I'm just going to move the rocks around and suck up all the stuff that settled. Fill the sump back up with fresh salt water then turn the system back on. I'll do this during water changes. I have no more room in my first chamber in my sump for any socks because I'm running my skimmer and mj pump for my phosban 150. It's a 20 long so shallow for a long sock as it is.

 

[tunicata]

I use the bucket head too.

I clean the sump out with the bucket head. If i don't want to take out all the water (which is easy because the bucket only holds 5 g). I pick the worst site of detritus pile up and I suction that out.

I also have a long siphon tube from Drsfoster that I use for the dt. I put the end of the siphon into a 5 g bucket/big watercooler bottle and only take out 5g at a time.

I'm trying to do a weekly schedule of 5 from the sump and 5 from the DT.
I stopped using filter socks for now because they get gross quickly and i am just not changing them fast enough thus my levels get worse.

 

[TommyP]

I use the bucket head too.

I clean the sump out with the bucket head. If i don't want to take out all the water (which is easy because the bucket only holds 5 g). I pick the worst site of detritus pile up and I suction that out.

I also have a long siphon tube from Drsfoster that I use for the dt. I put the end of the siphon into a 5 g bucket/big watercooler bottle and only take out 5g at a time.

I'm trying to do a weekly schedule of 5 from the sump and 5 from the DT.
I stopped using filter socks for now because they get gross quickly and i am just not changing them fast enough thus my levels get worse.

I was having the same issue. I also am trying to look for someway to pump 5 gallons of fresh saltwater back in after we suck 5 gallons out. I am going to do 5 a week as well on my set up. 5 from sump 1 week, 5 from DT, etc. I just hate slowly pouring the 5 gallon bucket over the DT it's too time consuming. I guess a small pump would work. I have an extra one laying around I can use.