Best invention in years!

[jaylach]

Most probably know what an I robot home vacuum is. How about such a unit that would be air powered dragging a mesh bag to automatically do substrate cleaning? Have a rotating bristle type brush at the front and the air line causing a vacuum to draw the stird up crud to the mesh bag? Probably take two air lines but struck me as a pretty cool thought. Same type of sensors used in an I robot could be used to avoid plants and deco.

LOL! Sometimes my brain goes into weird thought mode. Still I'd bet dollars to donuts that it could be done.

 

[Fishmanic]

Most probably know what an I robot home vacuum is. How about such a unit that would be air powered dragging a mesh bag to automatically do substrate cleaning? Have a rotating bristle type brush at the front and the air line causing a vacuum to draw the stird up crud to the mesh bag? Probably take two air lines but struck me as a pretty cool thought. Same type of sensors used in an I robot could be used to avoid plants and deco.

LOL! Sometimes my brain goes into weird thought mode. Still I'd bet dollars to donuts that it could be done.

First it would probably be cost prohibitive to most fish keepers. it would be too dangerous to small substrate fish ... it would be difficult to impossible to use on sand substrate as it would suck up sand. Also difficult to maneuver around plants and driftwood. Nothing is better than good hand-eye coordination to do a proper substrate cleaning.

 

[jaylach]

First it would probably be cost porohibitive to most fish keepers. it would be too dangerous to small substrate fish ... it would be difficult to impossible to use on sand substrate as it would suck up sand. Also diffiucult to maneuver around plants and driftwood. Nothing is better than good hand-eye coordination to do a proper substrate cleaning.

Oh, of course it would not really be workable, just my mind thinking weird things.

First it could not work in a heavily planted tank such as mine unless the thing could be made in a unit like 1/2 inch square. It could just not maneuver in a heavily planted tank.

Even with a fairly open substrate there would still be an issue with air lines getting wrapped around stuff.

I didn't really mean it seriously, just thought that it would be a cool concept if able to be done. LOL! can you guess that I'm doing a water change tomorrow and thinking of ways around that?

Still similar type units work in swimming pools and could be possible that the same type unit could work in ponds.

 

[Fishmanic]

Or if you have money to burn, you could hire an aquarium maintenance firm to service your tanks.

 

[jaylach]

Or if you have money to burn, you could hire an aquarium maintenance firm to service your tanks.

Actually I could probably afford to hire tank upkeep but would never do as it would then be their tank, not mine. Shoot, my tank is just a little 20 gallon cube. It does not take much to vacuum and do a water change. I just hate doing it as I'm so heavily planted that it is hard to do the substrate. As I feed meal worms (mainly for my rope fish) a lot get left in and around plants and rot. Have to get them out but it really is a pain.

Actually I'm thinking about stopping the meal worms and going with just red wiggle worms and live Tubifex worms. Both will burrow in the substrate and live. Both my rope and cichlids will dig out wiggler worms and probably would do the same with Tubifex worms. I just worry about the Tubifex worms as I've read in places that the live version often carries harmful bacteria. Still I really need to come up with something other than the meal worms as they really leave a mess. As to my cichlids it is not an issue as they are totally happy with flakes and some protein pellets now and then.

To be honest I'm not even sure that the meal worms are needed for my rope as he often digs around in the substrate munching on stuff that has settled. I think that he thinks he is a catfish or something.

 

[Fishmanic]

In my 29 gallon tank, I have a single catfish that vacuums up leftover flakes that the top level fish miss. Every 2 to 3 days I drop in 2 algae wafers for my pair of plecos … the plecos do a good job of devouring the wafers.

 

[jaylach]

In my 29 gallon tank, I have a single catfish that vacuums up leftover flakes that the top level fish miss. Every 2 to 3 days I drop in 2 algae wafers for my pair of plecos … the plecos do a good job of devouring the wafers.

I have no catfish, no corys and no plecos. As to fish it is just my Smiling Dwarf Cichlids and rope doing anything with the substrate by rooting around finding food which probably does the same. Still neither will touch a meal worm that has been in the tank a couple of days so I'm constantly sucking them out. I would REALLY like to get away from the meal worms and go with red wigglers and Tubifex worms as they will both live in the substrate and be dug up. I just worry a bit on some stuff I've read about live Tubifex worms.

I am also looking at breeding fresh water scuds as food, the little ones. Just sent an info request on the critters to Dan's Fish on this. They are currently out of stock but I asked them if a 5 gallon tank with strong under gravel filtration would work and, if not the minimum tank size needed.I guess I just really want to get away from the meal worms. My rope likes them but the cichlids nibble on them as they sink, If a cichlid nibbles the rope won't touch even though the cichlids seldom actually really eat the meal worm. Mayhaps the cichlids leave a pheromone when they nibble that the rope does not like...

 

[seangee]

Most probably know what an I robot home vacuum is. How about such a unit that would be air powered dragging a mesh bag to automatically do substrate cleaning? Have a rotating bristle type brush at the front and the air line causing a vacuum to draw the stird up crud to the mesh bag? Probably take two air lines but struck me as a pretty cool thought. Same type of sensors used in an I robot could be used to avoid plants and deco.

LOL! Sometimes my brain goes into weird thought mode. Still I'd bet dollars to donuts that it could be done.

Already got 'em. They are called corydoras, ably assisted by MTS. As a bonus they clean the plants too. I have lost count of how many years it is since I vacuumed a substrate.

 

[GaryE]

I wonder if you could design an undergravel vacuum that fed up to an outlet pipe, so water changes were also vacuums. I'd never buy one as a deep clean on sand or gravel might be needed every 5 years or so. But a lot of people worry about mulm and gravel vacuum madly, and useless devices that work are a great way to make money. I have seen so many solutions to problems that weren't problematic...

A robot would be fun, but destructive.

 

[jaylach]

Already got 'em. They are called corydoras, ably assisted by MTS. As a bonus they clean the plants too. I have lost count of how many years it is since I vacuumed a substrate.

Corys are as much out of line in my tank as my auto vacuum. Since I use under gravel filtration my substrate is gravel which is not all that good for corys. Same issue with plecos. Panda Garras are a good solution but I need a second tank to allow them to get large enough to not be food for my cichlids.

 

[lottabubbles]

my featherfin screamers already do that job

 

[jaylach]

I wonder if you could design an undergravel vacuum that fed up to an outlet pipe, so water changes were also vacuums. I'd never buy one as a deep clean on sand or gravel might be needed every 5 years or so. But a lot of people worry about mulm and gravel vacuum madly, and useless devices that work are a great way to make money. I have seen so many solutions to problems that weren't problematic...

A robot would be fun, but destructive.

Of course one could build such a system. Just off the top of my head I would say to use power heads on the 'air risers' for the under gravel. Channel the output of the power heads to a sponge or canister input and you have the system. You would have the benefits of both systems. Shoot, in a way, I did this almost 35 years ago with the result of not doing an actual water change for 2-3 years. Ya, some will say that there would still be garbage in the water that I would not be able to test and my lack of being able to test is true. However my old store was owned and run by a marine biologist and aquatic vet. Shoot, she even did fish surgeries if you had a fish worth the price. Dang the last sounds cold but was not. What I meant is that she would do a surgery but would be totally up front about it letting you know the chances of success and really talk to you about it. I know of many cases when she did surgery for free to try to save a child's favorite fish. I have yet to find another lady such as she. When she died the fish world lost one it's best advocates.

Sorry as I went on a tangent which I often do. Bottom line is that this lady had the ability to do many water tests that I could not do. I would take in water samples every month and she would do intensive tests that you can't even get kits to do. Due to setting up the tank as she advised I never had any test results that called for an actual water change. Even though we became friends it wasn't just me. She would do these in depth tests on the water for any regular customer and never charges for doing so. Good luck on finding a store that will give such service today.