Water change pump / gravel vac combo

[idris]

I'm probably going to get an caravan type inline pump for water changes as discussed on another thread, but I was wondering about rigging up some appropriate pipes to use it as a gravel vac as well. (The sort that gets the crud off the top of the substrate and then returns the water to the tank.)

As long as there's some sort of filter (probably an piece of course filter foam) before the actual pump, my only concern is whether the pump might be too powerful. (I can see there might be problems if the substrate was sand, but I'm expecting to have pea gravel on top of adakama.)

Any thoughts?

 

[danmil3s]

ive asked about this before cant remember who said it or which thread. but basically i was told that if you vacuum the substrate then return the water to the tank, all the ammonia in will be returned also.so its was best to just bin the water. made sense to me so out the window the water goes.

 

[idris]

Fair enough.
Would the flow rate (10-20 L/min) be too high for use as a gravel vac?