For quick and thorough removal of sludge and dirt layers in your aquarium gravel. Powerful and maintenance free suction pumps. Safe for fresh or saltwater use with a maximum water depth of 24 inches. 4 AA batteries included.
Eheim Sludge Extractor – SLUDGE EXTRACTOR
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I would call it a gravel cleaner as I do not have too much sludge. The unit is well made it is large powerful (could use a bit more) and manuverable, long lasting battery life, captures very small particles, easy to know when the unit needs to be emptied I clean mine once during a cleaning of a 30 gal., just have to easily rinse to keep performance. The mesh on the filtering cage I would think could tear if not moderatly careful storing the unit. my 30gal takes about 20 minutes. Pricey and how long is it going to last? I don’t know. I have used mine 10 times. Anyone need a Python? Very Cool……. THANK YOU!
I do think it’s a bit overpriced, but it works very well. Much better than a hose you have to hook up to a faucet.
I have a 90 gallon tank and sometimes I don’t want to perform a water change to get the bottom of the tank clean. I had the multi-vac previously. I have no issues with that except over time, the pieces won’t stay together. I bought the sludge extractor (PETCO) and I love it. It reaches to the bottom of my tank and I didn’t have to drain any water. The pressure on the vacuum was more than adequate. I was a bit relunctant on the proce, but I’m happy I did buy it and would recommend it to others. Just shop around for the lowest price.
I bought this because I have a 60 gallon tank and you just cant clean all the gravel during a normal water change. I was a little skeptical at first but after 5 minutes I was sold. This thing has just the right amount of suction – enough to get all the crud out of the gravel but not enough to suck the gravel up. (Although occassionally it does happen and it would be nice if it was easier to dis-assemble to get the gravel out of the impeller)
It also comes in handy if you feed your fish sinking wafers and they just dont eat it all – you can quickly suck up the leftovers before they start to ferment in the bottom of the tank.
It is submersible – I have used it about a dozen times now and no water in the battery compartment and I have not had to change the batteries yet. (One full and one quick cleaning of the entire tank and about 10x where I just cleaned up leftover food)
I would recommend to anyone with a large tank to help between water changes.
I have a 90 gallon, a 55 gallon and 2 10 gallon grow out tanks, all sand and partial cichlid gravel, and started to use this in the 90 gallon tank. It worked at first, ooh easy and seemed to pick up the sludge, then started to suck up a lot of sand, and it stopped working when a piece of gravel got stuck in in impeller. So I had to tear it apart. Continued to do this for a half an hour since the motor continued to quit working, and gave up and went back to my siphon.It sounded like it was grinding most of the time. It was easy to take apart, but the batteries were not strong enough for what I expected $60.00 to be worth. Still looking for a good vacuum.