aquarium vacuums??

[PsiStar]

I am not interested in vacuuming the substrate or live rock. But, having very recently realized that I have a flat worm infestation and reading about various methods for their removal. This comes down to melanurus wrasse or Flatworm Exit ... natural versus chemical.

Part of the chem process is siphoning out as many of the little critters as possible. Being new to this level of maintenance, this sounded like a complete PITA (not the bread). I just searched for "aquarium vacuums" and a few battery powered devices show up. They range from ~$15 to just over $100 & would seem to take the PITA out of the siphoning and enabling spot, ad hoc siphoning without without the drama of a large water change ... the water is returned to the tank. I see any sort of project siphoning these little critters up will be time consuming & would probably pull up a considerable amount of water.

I searched thru the forum's product reviews and found no comments about these. So, anyone have experience with? Anyone's thoughts?

 

[Smitty]

You can just use a regular turkey baster to siphon them out. They only run 1-2 bucks, and you can also use it to blow the crap off your rocks before a water change.

 

[chichimom79]

You can also just start a siphon with a piece of soft airline tubing and get the little bastards. I've also seen where people caught the FW in pantyhose so they could reuse the water they sucked out. Myself, I say it's a good WC opportunity.

 

[PsiStar]

We have lots of turkey basters ... wife is prof. chef/caterer. I found this. They are in the refugium with ~50 lbs. of live rock & plants. There are a lot conveniently sticking to the sides of the tank, especially in one corner. So I am planning to use the siphon + the scraper from that to suck up the little mazzards.

I will try to write a review when I have used it.

 

[ErinCahir]

The battery-powered vacuum I have experience with (can't remember the brand off the top of my head right now) worked really well for like... five minutes. And then was crap no matter how thoroughly I cleaned it.

 

[PsiStar]

Thanks Erin. This was the trend for the few comments I found online. Actually those were the only comments. Knowing people are likely to complain at the drop of the hat but are reticent that something works "ok" ... unless bought off amazon who pings you to comment.

I am thinking about developing my own vac by using a small pump & filter with the kit. Water changes should not have to a part of the operation, maybe but maybe not. I think I will be doing this operation more than once within a few days before using Flatworm eXit. I will vacuum, wait a day or so, then vacuum + treat. There are a bazillion of these things in my ref.

 

[ErinCahir]

Luckily, I caught mine pretty early, so I only had to dose the Exit once.

General consensus is that you have to do it more than once. Some people siphon out as many as they can before they treat (and really most of us just used a bit of airline tubing and siphoned them out that way). Then once you treat you stand there and suck out as many as you can as they flail around. Then water change and run carbon for a bit. They do release a toxin as they die, but it won't affect anything as long as you're diligent about removing as many of the bodies as you see, running the carbon and doing the water change.

 

[MitchReef]

I always just siphoned them real good about 4 or 5 times and they always seem to go away after that....I use a piece of flexible airline to a hard airline piece that I use like a wand to get them....

 

[PsiStar]

@Mitch... I have made that kind of thing before. The nuance with this is that so many are on the sides of the tank. So I was reasoning that a combination scraper/squeegee + siphon would get many more. The thought of chasing them down with an air hose seemed like shooting gnats in a swarm with a BB gun.

These have been the kind of thing that suddenly pops out at you. I think they have been there for weeks ... or at least growing. Suddenly, there they are and are all that i can see!

The kit that I found is cheap enough although the most important item I was interested in is the squeegee scraper that has a hose attachment. It seems to have some valves built into the pump like thing to get the siphon started ... a little more refined than folding my 1/2" hose, I do now, to slow the siphon flow.

Last, aquacon (aka Aquatic Connection) has responded quite positively to my frustration offering suggestions and possible solutions. They offered to send Flatworm eXit at no charge. I will write it up a bit more in the vendor eval forum, but I have concluded that the worms did not come in on anything from them.

 

[d2mini]

You can also just start a siphon with a piece of soft airline tubing and get the little bastards. I've also seen where people caught the FW in pantyhose so they could reuse the water they sucked out. Myself, I say it's a good WC opportunity.

+1.

Any airline tubing with pantyhose on the end, stuck in your sump. Once it's going you can vacuum all day long. I would use a clamp or something on the sump end to make sure it doesn't pop out while you are vacuuming.

 

[PsiStar]

@d2mini ... THAT is so obvious. I would have never thought of it!!!!!:bounce:

 

[noy]

I made this contraption where I used a maxijet 400 in powerhead mode stuck to the side of the tank about 1/2 way.with tubing on both ends, The output end I put the tubing into a old salt bucket into a mounted filter sock. I used the suction end to vacuum the bottom. Every so often I would just empty the water in the bucket back in the sump.

This was used to vacuum up filter media that had dispersed onto the sandbed (from another brilliant contraption where I had built this media flow box into the return flow output).

 

[RockStacker]

+1.

Any airline tubing with pantyhose on the end, stuck in your sump. Once it's going you can vacuum all day long. I would use a clamp or something on the sump end to make sure it doesn't pop out while you are vacuuming.

That is what I do too when removing detritus from the rocks.
Instead of having the water go into a bucket, it just goes back to the sump with a filter sock. :)

 

[chichimom79]

That is what I do too when removing detritus from the rocks.
Instead of having the water go into a bucket, it just goes back to the sump with a filter sock. :)

Great idea!