capturing debris…

[Magnum Man71 186]

I think I’m going to use a fish net over the filter intakes when I remove them from the filters to retain all the debris they have captured… in removing some challenging fish from a tank, I was forced to remove most of the plants, some heavily rooted in the substrate which caused the filters to collect this stuff on the intake tubes… when I remove the tubes, and or shut off the filters, they be loose again… I’m thinking the fish net will retain this stuff for removal… just curious what any of you have used in the past, if you had a situation where you disturbed the tank, and had a lot of debris in the water???

you can see the quantity of captured debris on the filter tube of this picture…

and the other ( 2nd ) filter is covered as well…

 

[Tomsfish29 29]

I used a small vacuum hose to suck stuff off intakes.
I had multiple sized hoses for syphoning different sized tanks.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford70 185]

I have a sponge prefilter on my intake. I use a large McDonald's drink cup, I just slide the sponge into the cup as I take it off. Otherwise debris goes everywhere.

 

[GaryE31 30]

I've used a deep net (debris released form the the filter suction floats up quickly), or even my hands. It's part of my routine here.

 

[Jennet50 108]

This is not something I had thought about. Think I may just resort to a 2 litre jug to go under and up, as my filter pulls away from the housing.

 

[Uberhoust16]

I use net material with an internal PVC/ABS pipe drilled with holes to keep the net from snugging up against the intake. This give a larger surface area to the netting which reduces the flow through, this also helps keep the filter running smoothly because there are not as much back vacuum to the intake side of the filter. A stainless steel screen would have a similar affect if it was a large enough diameter.

 

[TwoTankAmin59]

I use fine mesh nets to prevent the pre-filters from letting the gunk get back into the water then I remove them. For the smaller home made pre-filters I use a brine shrimp net. For most of the ATI pre-filters I use one of my bigger, white, fine mesh nets, usually a 6" wide one.

The nets catch all the gunk and then I can either swish it clean in a bucket or water or else under sink faucet.