Eheim Aquarium Vacuum - Quick Vac Pro Review
Updated August 12, 2019
Author: Mike - FishLore Admin
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The Eheim Aquarium Vacuum is also sold as the Eheim Quick Vac Pro. It is a battery operated submersible vacuum that can be used to clean the substrate (sand, gravel, bare bottom) in your aquarium. At least, that's what the manufacturer (Eheim) claims. The price for this aquarium vacuum is around $50 US dollars and I have seen it in the local stores (petsmart and petco) and you can definitely pick one up online for a few dollars less than retail. In looking at reviews on aquarium forums, on online shops and at Amazon it was especially interesting to see the disparity in the reviews. One person would claim that it's the best piece of equipment that they have ever used on their aquarium and the next person would say that it was a complete waste of money. What was the truth? I had to pick one up to find out.
After buying this Eheim aquarium vacuum online (it was a few dollars cheaper and shipping was a good deal) I soon received my new aquarium vacuum in the mail. Set up was fairly straight forward. There are around 4 or 5 pieces that need to be snapped together and it took about 30 seconds to figure it out and put it together. It is battery operated and the battery compartment has an O-ring to prevent any water from entering the compartment. I was impressed with the size of this vacuum. It is around 22 inches long with the extension added to it so I should have no trouble at all reaching the bottom of my tank. The bottom piece extension is slotted and is designed to go about 1 cm deep into the substrate to suction up debris without distrubing the beneficial bacteria. The collection basket is made of really fine mesh material. It lets the gunk in and the water flows through it back into the tank.
Ok, after putting it all together it was ready for a test run. I turned the power on (button is on the very top of the unit) and immediately noticed the sound coming from the spinning impeller. The spinning magnetic device doesn't quite fit around the plastic it's supposed to go around very well and it makes a bit of noise. Who cares about the noise as long as it does the job, right? Into the tank goes the vacuum and my first impression was "is that all the suction this thing has!?" Oh-em-gee. I just wasted $50 bucks on this thing. This can't be right. I read all of those glowing reviews on this vacuum. I take it apart and reassemble it. I replace the batteries thinking maybe I accidentally got some old ones (they do send 4 batteries with the unit) with 4 brand spanking new Duracells AA's. I then turn on the power to the device and get the same results. Little to no suction, noisy, blah, blah, blah.
So, you can imagine my dissapointment with the Eheim Aquarium Vacuum. I was really looking forward to this thing working well for my tank. The tank I was wanting to primarily use it on is a bare bottomed reef tank and this vacuum would have been perfect for spot cleaning every few days in between water changes. There are a lot of things going for this vacuum. It seems like it is well designed and well thought out but it just needs a bigger motor or something. I wouldn't even mind having to put 8 AA batteries in it instead of 4 if it would double the power it delivered. I'm now looking online for mod ideas on how to make it more powerful since I don't want to completely throw in the towel. If I do come across anything I'll post back here.
Eheim Aquarium Vacuum Positives
- It's a flipping Submersible Aquarium Vacuum! First of it's kind? Lets you clean your fish tank without having to replace aquarium water.
- Nice looking design, plenty long enough to reach the bottom of most tanks.
Eheim Aquarium Vacuum Negatives
- Price - price was way too high for the performance delivered
- Performance - very, very low power. Needs to be much more powerful to make it worthwhile.
One Lesson Learned
One thing that I did take away from this buying experience is this: I no longer trust the reviews on most of the online stores, especially Amazon.com. Amazon really needs to come up with a way to prevent this from happening in their reviews in order to keep them relevant. I went back and re-read the reviews as I was writing this review and I noticed that some of the "glowing" reviews were all quite similar. There were also some reviews on forums that were really good reviews but they were made by members with only 1 or 2 posts! Was this the Eheim marketing dept. signing up to "market" their product? I sure hope not, but you never know. TIP: when reading reviews on forums take a look at how many posts that person has... if it's in the hundreds/thousands chances are they are going to be giving it to you straight. If that member has just a few posts, chances are they are an employee of that company or make money in some way off that product and just signed up to post a review.
Eheim makes some pretty good pumps so I was really not expecting them to lay an egg like they did with this product. I would not buy this product again, nor would I recommend it to a friend. Overall, I give this product 
Thanks for reading. The video below is from the manufacturer.
Rating Information
Reviewed by: Mike FishLore
Summary: Review of the Eheim Aquarium Vacuum.
Description: The Eheim Aquarium Vacuum is also sold as the Eheim Sludge Remover. It is a battery operated submersible vacuum that can be used to clean the substrate (sand, gravel, bare bottom) in your aquarium.
Rating: 1 out of 5 stars.
Eheim Aquarium Vacuum Comments
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From: Tom I agree that this vacuum is NOT worth the money. It needs to be 10x more powerful in my opinion. I went back to using my old trusty python. |
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From: Marsha I agree. My husband saw this at PetSmart and we both thought it would be a good idea. It does lack the power of just siphoning. But it is good for a quick cleanup without a water change. |
