Does anyone else periodically get burned out on tank maintenance?

[MrJG]

I agree that sounds awesome! I tried one of the turnkey return “gravel vacuums” once and it was total garbage. Sent it back the next day.
@Naturescapes_Rocco have you detailed the part list for this in one of your journals already?

 

[JayP]

It's just a Netlea Prefilter (Large G2 size), with a lily pipe outflow for hooking the return hose on to the rim of my tank, and and inflow is just an open 5/8" vinyl tubing into the prefilter. I connect tubing from the prefilter to an Oase Optimax inline pump.

My setup above has it's pros and cons. The cons are; 1. The inline strainer is smaller than I would like, and 2. There's not a good way to control the suction power of the diaphragm pump. Putting a valve on the pump output doesn't work very well. I imagine you can dial the optimax pump down a bit to get the suction right where you want it. On the other hand, the diaphragm pump self primes. I assume you have to manually prime your setup each time? If doing that isn't too much trouble, I'd definitely consider your setup before mine for substrate vacuuming.