Suave

Excuse my lack of knowledge, but what are gravel vacs for? They suck up the gravel? I am really sorry for this stupid question... I believe they just clean the gravel right?

anyways please answer my question along with a few others.
how do they work?
do I need to remove planted plants in order to use it?
remove fish to avoid sucking them up?

thanks for allowing me to ask my silly questions.

steveangela1

I use a python vaccum, you can hook it up to your kitchen facet and it picks up the loose stuff on the bottom of the tank off the gravel. The python also can fill the tank back up its a bucketless way of cleaning the tank.

In my tank w/ the plants I vaccum around them to keep from moving/disturbing them. And no you don't have to remove the fish to avoid sucking them up.

Suave

Oh that's cool. So if you fill the tank back up using that, does it dechlorinate the water?

steveangela1

no you have to put the chem in the water as you are filling the tank I put it in just 30 sec before I turn the water on in the tank. its awesome though, it really makes the waterchanges painless (I have 7 tanks)

Evelyn1919

oh yeah!!! the python thing works great!!!! i have one and i'm using it a lot!!! yeah just add the water conditioner right before you turn you start filling up the tank or while you are doint it cuz it works either way.
oh and your question was not stupid. i went months without even knowing what MTS stands for until someone else asked and i was glad i wasn't the only dummy here!

Suave

wow thanks a lot guys! I'll definately get one of those pythons, I think I remember seeing one at the LPS

EDIT: I read that there is something you can hook up to your faucet, perhaps in between the python and faucet, that actually dechlorinates the water as it passes through. I am I thinking of something else? or can I get one of those?

Evelyn1919

mmmmmmmmm.....i don't think it completely dechlorinates the water but the aeration that it produces helps the water to not have so much chlorine by the time it gets in the tank. still if you find something let us know!
also the water conditioners don't only dechlorinate the water but it detoxifies heavy metals in tap water.

Suave

oh ok. I am going to try to find that article I read about it in and see what it was talking about.

tzqng8

Just a quick note here... Python actually says that in many cases, dechlorinator does not need to be used with their product if your tap water ONLY contains Chlorine (no Chloramine). The reason for this is that as the water travels through the faucet, into the tube, and out the nozzle it is being highly aerated, thusly removing most, if not all, of the Chlorine.

Now, I haven't tried this as I don't have a test kit for Chlorine. Otherwise, I'd fill up a 5g bucket with the thing and test it to see. But, something I've heard in case someone wants to give it a shot.

Suave

Sounds reasonable, I will try it once I can get my hands on one..

steveangela1

I know our tap water def has chloramine. Btw you might want to check w/ your local water people to find out if yours does too. Its put in the water to make it hold clorine.

Suave

oh ok thanks for the heads up

Bonochick

As was mentioned, you don't have to remove fish...but be careful! Most of my fish get out of the way of the vac, but one of my fish seems fascinated by it, and he has started to get sucked up on more than one occasion! My boyfriend usually operates the vacuum, and I watch the tank to make the fish are staying out of the way.