# Reverse Flow on a Powerhead?



## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

I think I have an aquaclear powerhead, I don't know if it is and I don't know the gph.

I use it to pump water from my storage barrel to my tanks but I was wondering if there is a way to reverse flow and make it suck the water out of my tanks too?

I know it is possible because I did it before by mistake when I was cleaning out one of my tanks a couple years ago.

This pwoerhead is OLD cause I took it from my uncle who has been keeping fish since he came to Canada x.x


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## wtac (Mar 17, 2006)

Unfortunately, PHs aren't designed for suction per se. What happened in your case could be of many contributing factors, especially if the PH is below the water line. One can increase the "drain rate" by creating a siphon to feed the PH and the PH in essence boost the flowrate to it's max GPH minus head height. 

If it's one of the Hagen PH that has the reverse flow features, it doesn't suck from the output nozzle but from the slots at the side of the impeller housing, IIRC.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

I have no idea what you are talking about mainly cause I just wokeup from a nap, lol.

I think I am going to try making my water changes easier by siphoning to a bucket with a powerhead and a nother siphon in the bucket that leads out onto my balcony.

As I siphon water into the bucket, the powerhead pumps it out onto my balcony and into the trees below at night when noone is out  It isn't like anyone walks behind there anyways, it is a landfill with racoons and people throw garbage off of their balcony when they are lazy... not that I do.

I think the extra water would be useful for it


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## wtac (Mar 17, 2006)

LOL...cobwebby?


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

What is cobwebby?


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## wtac (Mar 17, 2006)

cobwebs in the head...just a phrase for that state of mind after a nap or just waking up.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Lol, well then... yes


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## MT-ED (Apr 4, 2006)

The older Aquaclears (certainly my 802s) have a yellow control for flow rate and a green control that will reverse the flow. Be warned though that in reverse mode the flow is way lower.

For my water changes I have a Rio 1500 pump hooked up to two Pythons connected together. It's more than long enough to reach anywhere in my apartment. I throw it in the tank I'm draining, hook up the power via an extension, and the other end goes into the toilet. I put the pipe under the seat and the end of the pipe has a gravel vac tube on it, so it can't pull back and drop onto the floor.

I have an 18 gallon plastic muck-bucket (Home Depot, Canadian Tire or any good hardware store) with carrying handles. That fits under the bath mixer tap and I put water in at the appropriate temperature and add dechlorinator as it's pouring in. This mixes in the dechlor well. Remove pump from tank, drop into muck-bucket, remove gravel vac end from toilet, place in tank, hook up the juice and sit back and watch the tank fill.

Low-impact water-changing  OK, you have to invest in some equipment, but when you've got a 120, 130, 65 and two 30's on the go, carrying buckets gets a bit old.

Brian, couldn't you somehow use your powerhead in the same way? Sure makes life easy.

Martin.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Yeah, I was thinking about doing it that way but what was keeping me from it was that I wouldn't be able to clean up the debris appropriately with a powerhead.

This is what I currently do:

1. Vacuum out debris into 5gallon buckets
2. Lug the buckets to the washroom and pour them down the toilet
3. Hook up siphon to the powerhead in my water storage bin
4. Put the siphon into the tank and let it fill
5. Fill up 5gallon buckets in washroom
6. Lug back into my room and refill the water storage bin

I have to lug 4 buckets to the washroom and 4 buckets back to my room a day, it is tiring on my back.

As mentioned, I was going to do what you do, hook the powerhead up with siphon and throw the powerhead into my tanks and let it drain the water, then, throw powerhead back into water storage bin and let it refill the tanks.

There are 2 problems here:

1. It isn't efficient in cleaning the bottom of the tank along with the debris, so if I find a way around this, I might just go with this method.

2. I am worried about transferring diseases between my tanks and between my tanks and the water storage bin.

I suppose a good rinse would take care of this but it is better to be safe than sorry,


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