Looking to vacuum tank water but for water to be pumped back into tank.

Thank you. I shall try twice a week.

 

This tank. And where will the fish go? Thanks for the offer but no thanks.

 

That will really make a huge difference. Then once every two months thanks bud

The Tranquility Effect

 

I just made one but not as sophisticated. Problem is the pump must be primed first before the water flows through.
Vacuuming without a pump I simply blow into the vacuum tube continuously until it starts vacuuming, but water outlet
has to be lower than the inlet tube.
With this system both the vacuum tube and the outlet hose are both in the tank and because of this I cannot get the system primed so the pump pumps dry.

 

I am on the verge of giving up. Vacuuming one corner of the tank for half an hour and the "fluff" kept on rising up the tube.
Then it stopped working. No amount of sucking and blowing could get it working again and there does not appear to be an obstruction. I then fitted the wave maker at the far end of the tank but the rubber suckers will not stay fixed to the glass.
This to keep the cable out the water.

 

It's over two weeks since I started vacuuming the gravel and changing 60 liters of water twice a week. Matrix is in the filter and
wave maker working. I have just done a nitrate test and the reading is still off the color chart.

 

Im glad you are doing this well done. How often do you feed your fish. Try only once a day as much as they can eat in two minutes. Remember the more food thsy eat causes them to poo more lol And also skip a days feeding once a week. How old is your test kit. Go and test your water at your petshop just to make sure about your test kit.

The Tranquility Effect

 

It is virtually impossible to say how much food is eaten. My huge tinfoil barb must be blind because as the food sinks he simply
swims through without signs of actually eating. My small albino widows are more alert and immediately grab the food.
This is especially apparent when I drop a few bits of ox heart strips in the water. My small fish immediately grab them but
the large fish do not react as quickly.
In the morning I give them a pinch of flakes and nothing more until supper time. One must remember that besides this large
tinfoil barb, I also have a large clown loach and six large silver dollars.
To summarize, I have no idea whether they are all eating too little or too much.

I have removed all that brown algae/mold from the gravel. I will continue with the bi-weekly water changes and take a water sample to the pet shop as my kit does not show an expiry date.

Somewhat off topic. I have made a large vacuum system to increase the flow rate. The vacuum tube is 300 mm long x 50 mm diameter, attached to a pipe 600 mm long, attached to 5 metres x 14 mm hose.
All the sucking and blowing in the world does not get the water flowing. I even took it to a pet shop hoping to get an inline
pump that could prime the system but they had nothing to offer.

 

911 stop with the beef heart strips that is whats causing your nitrates to skyrocket. Its easy you must no see any food floating around after 2minutes. All the big fish only needs to feed once a day. Hungry fish are healthy fish. Just as long as they get something to eat all is good. As in nature they only eat when they get some. Any uneaten food rots in your tank and causes nitrates to skyrocket. But lets first get a 2nd opinion on your water test. Keep up with the water changes most important.

The Tranquility Effect

 

5meters of pipe sjoh no wonder it does not do anything. I just use a normal syphyn pipe the ones you buy from petshops. And I use a 20 liter drum to empty out 50 liters.

The Tranquility Effect

 

Your waterchanges are too small, and too infrequent, you'll never get your nitrates to levels of around 10ppm to 20ppm no matter what filter material you use. You can do the math to determine the frequency and volume of waterchanges yourself. You have a 600l tank, if your nitrates are off the chart, they are probably around 160ppm. Doing a 50% water change, (and replacing with tap water, assuming at 0ppm nitrates) will lower your nitrates to 80ppm, still too high.
You will need to do at least 2, back to back, 90% water changes to "reset" your nitrate level below 10ppm.
Thereafter you need to measure your nitrates daily to see the nitrate creep and work out your water changes to stay below 20ppm.

 

If you can I would do 60 liters everyday for 10 days. This will be a full tank water change. But lets see what your water test is from petshop.

The Tranquility Effect

 

I got some ox heart but have only had it a week and tried feeding it to the fish on three occasions.
I have also previously stated that my large fish do not feed on any food that floats on the surface. They, the large fish, are mid water feeders but there is no food available that sinks slowly to the middle. That Tetra pellets for "mid-water and bottom feeding fish" is a farce as many of the pellets remain on the water surface and ends up going over the weir.
Anyway, I appreciate your assistance.

 

Are you talking about Tetra Bits? I used to feed tetra bits to my big fish years ago with no problems. How often do you clean your filters in tank water.

The Tranquility Effect

 

I wish to experiment by modifying the siphon hose. You say 5 meters is too long. I can reduce it to 4 meters but could it not be that the 14 mm hose (hole size) is too large as my 8 mm hose is 8 meters long and a few sucks gets the water flowing.
Or maybe as the vacuum tube and the pipe attached total 900 mm length and being upright in the tank maybe the height is too much for the water to siphon up???

 

Think the siphon tube might be to long.

The Tranquility Effect

 

There is no way I can import 300 liters of water into the house, remove chlorine and chloramine, adjust temperature and get this water into the tank. My setup allows me to do 60 liters at a time. At best I can do this daily.

 

My maid bought me 1 kg piece of ox tail heart but as I said I have only used it a few times and only from last week.
I have just tested the PH and ammonia levels. All fine.

 

Cool rather let her have it. Good that ammonia levels are 0 what is your ph. How about nitrates. I you do have time to do daily 60liter water changes do it until your nitrates are under 25

The Tranquility Effect

 

Then your fish will have to survive in a high nitrate environment...