Sooooo.. maybe you didn't know this but Oscars are messy! They poop ALOT !!! Now I have this wonderful 120 gal tank with sand at the bottom. I have one of the tube type siphons - fat section into tank, smaller tube into bucket. It is a long one, made for the bigger tanks. Here is the issue. There is not enough suction to get the poop out of the tank. No matter how I angle it. I know I am not the only one who has sand in big tanks with Oscars. How the hell do you guys clean the poop out?????

I went through three 5 gallon buckets and barely got 1/4 of the poop out. It will go into the fat section but doesn't suck all the way up. (Ignoring all your dirty thoughts right now!! )


I resorted to using my net to scoop out the poop which put sand everywhere.. on my rocks, my Oscars (they weren't impressed) and on my driftwood.

HELP !!!!
:angry:

how big is your syphon tube????

when i vaccum my tank i use a 1 inch tube and it provides more than enough suction to remove the fish waste.

Try using just the hose and taking the siphon end off. Should give you more suction...or find a 1" tube like Necro said. I had the same problem but just used the hose minus the tube and it worked much better.

By the way Necro...where did you find a 1" tube? I can't find them anywhere.

You can normally get a good suction that is strong enough to remove even quite big Oscar turds. Make sure there is nothing restricting the flow inside the large tube that you attach to the pipe, sometimes there is a little one-way latch system that stops things flowing back down again, these can sometimes get clogged or obscured.

What type of vac are you using, is it one of those that have a narrow opening, rather than completely round?

I agree with what has been said. Two things decide the flow rate, the smallest diameter of the syphon and the height difference between the water level in the tank and the far end of the pipe. Get a large diameter pipe (1inch would be great). But be warned it will fill bucket fast! So if i were you get a long 1inch diameter hose and put the far end out the door or window

ikkie78 wrote:



picked it up at petsmart for about $3 for a 3 foot lenght.

necromancer4 wrote:


Thanks...I'll have to take a closer look there tomorrow and pick some up.

siphon operates due to gravity.... the suction force is always proportional to the
gravity of running water inside the hose..having wide mouth of the suction and small
size of the hose will give you less suction force. small suction point and bigger hose
will give you good suction force. removing the suction funnel will give you better
cleaning suck. any moment that the suction point comes near the poohs, it will be
gone in a second. just run the tip of the hose above the sand and you will be done
in no time.

but i am still wondering how come you have this pooh problem with sand as substrate.
whenever i use sand, all poohs were being suck-out by the filter. there should be
enough water current under the tank to push the waste toward the suction point.

PAUL wrote:


Paul thanks again... I'm going to try that today.

As for the poop problem.. not sure. There is plent of water current and the tank is crystal clear (good levels too). The poop gathers in the sand right in front of the filter but there isn't enough to pull it up to the top of the tank for it to go into the intake of the sump. Right in front of the black piece that runs the entire height of the tank is where the poop sits. It gets to that point but the intake is at the top of that section and it doesn't make it there! In fact if you look closely at the pic, you can see some poop in the sand!

ha ha ha...i didn't realized that you are using sump...it is the only set-back
of sump... but there is easy remedy for that....no need to use bucket.

1) get a hose of enough length that could go deep enough with the overflow pipe
2) fill the hose with water... plug with finger tip one end, and insert the other
end at the overflow
3) when the hose is down enough, release the plug while still submerge...
feel the suction.... if it does, water is flowing...
4) if not...air had enter the hose...you need to redo step 2.
5) direct that end to all pooh and you will be amazed how fast they go..

So I'm just running the poop through the sump - without having to do water changes? I've been putting the syphon into a bucket - causing me to have to do a bucket or two of water changes to get the poop out. This will mean that I'll just have to clean the media in the sump? Rinse in tank water?

that is exactly the idea......

another option is using a powerhead with funnel at the suction... direct the
discharge at the overflow... the problem is difficult to control...it may
suck the sand too much...