Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Has anyone worked out a good way to make a vacuum cleaner for sumps out of the pumps or something? I have a lot of lime lying on the bottom and it is hard to sweep up as it just gets stirred up when I try... I thought maybe someone on the forum has written about it? I tried connecting a hose to the pump intake and using it for suction and the output into a bucket instead of back to fish tank... but the pump seems to have problems sucking through the hose even if it is only a metre long (pump was a 6500 l/h pump).
Any suggestions?

If it's a submersible magdrive pump like most of us use you just need to get the pump itself below water level, then it will be able to suck things up through a pipe or hose hooked to the intake.

A member here (orpmoc), used one of these supa-vac's to clean sand out of his system.

homemade one
download/file.php?id=51129

Hi Sleepe,

So is that the design for a suction end like on a vacuum cleaner? what does the sock do?
The sock gives me and idea though... perhaps putting a stocking on the end of the output side of the pump while sucking up the stuff from the bottom will make it easier because I wont have to waste water by pumping it out of the system...then when done i just remove the stocking..
Is that what the sock is for in your diagram? I wasn't sure how it would get stuck in the sock... I may be missing the point
Thanks for input

The hose is discharging into the filter sock causing water to be drawn up the vacuum by Venturi. As the hose is discharging into the sock it would smash the fish waste into fifteen million pieces and each one of those pieces would break into fifteen million pieces.... Then it would either block the sock quickly or shoot through the sock materials weave. Best to use a vacuum to waste, into a bucket for settling or for the garden.

good point about 'smashing up the waste'... my sump though has no real waste apart from leftover lime and smashing that up wouldnt matter as the reason I put it in there is to raise the Ph anyways.. Still I might as well suck it out to the garden in case there is a little bit of waste in it.
Thanks

[quote="skeggley"]

We appear to have a difference of opinion The object was to use a short term measure to vaccum the bottom of a pond/sump, this is not a long term low maintenance solution it was for a specific use. Your description of the reason it works is sort of accurate. The description that it would shoot through the weave is unlikely, the sock would become a finer and finer filter as it accumulates detrius, then would not work.

I made one I used one on the bottom of my pond, until I decided why bother.

I use garden hose to siphon from sum to a bucket and pump water back. If you have a big pump then you may have to stop the pump many time and wait for more water to come out

I bought an above ground pool (to swim in) last summer and it came with the same vacuum as pictured. Up here it can get quite windy and a lot of dust blew into the pool. Sand and leaves got picked up no worries but when i tried to vacuum the finer dust deposits the water went cloudy around the sock as it blew thru. It did get some sure, but it blocked up quick.

Thanks Skeggley,

I think I will pump out of the sump to the garden instead as the sock idea seems a bit more complicated

I like so much your system. It's not the biggest, not the talest but i like details, the space's arrangement, backup...
And make it in this slope is a feat in either.
Bravo!

Thanks Pierre,

It has been working well so far, and has given me a lot of experience for the next one

The green on your IBC's looks really really nice.

How did you get it to come out so well, without getting scraped up by the frames?

Hi John,

Thanks, it did however get some minor scratches but I avoided any major ones by spraying a little bit of oil on the painted surface and the frame it was sliding into... that stops the paint from gripping. And I had a couple people help when I slid them in so that we could push the sides in as much as possible so they didn't touch too much...