NICREW Electric Gravel Vacuum for Aquarium, Automatic Fish Tank Gravel Cleaner, 2 in 1 Aquarium Siphon Vacuum for Medium and Large Tanks

I was looking for a gravel cleaner for my aquarium and a friend recommended this. I was glad I did. First, I would strongly recommend the electric plug in one over battery powered. It is way more powerful and you don't have to worry about changing out batteries or having them get weak and not have enough suction.This is super easy to use and has two functions. One function allows you to just filter your gravel and not remove any water. The water goes thru a filter setup, trapping the crap and allowing the water to go back into the tank. It also comes with an extra filter, although not sure why, as it is easily removed and cleaned and replaced...but it's there if you need an extra one. The second function you install a clear hose (included) and it siphons up the water mixed with all the garbage and pumps it to wherever you have your hose placed (such as a 5 gallon bucket). The wand is super adjustable and even comes with an attachment so you can reach way down into your tank no matter how big it is. I have a 75 gallon tank, and can get everywhere with this thing.And super easy. Just hook it up and put the clear suction port into the gravel and jiggle the wand a little making sure to disturb the gravel. OMG...the disgusting brown crap gets sucked right up, leaving the gravel to drop back down. Move over a bit and repeat. Very satisfying to see that garbage get sucked away, leaving either a very nasty filter or a bucket filled with disgusting brown water. After one session, you know your tank is much cleaner.I am glad I bought this and happily recommend it to anyone. I was skeptical but I was so impressed, I felt I just had to leave a good review, which I only do with products I am truly happy with.

I researched like mad before buying this, and was so excited when I got the item. It seemed to have everything you could want and very nice features. It was missing a clear length of hose used for water changes but I went to the local pet store and bought some (too cheap of a thing to dicker about, I figure.) The 10 gallon tank finally needed a clean after going on it's 2nd week (it was a present for my Grandmom's 90th birthday.) (OMG you'd think she personally gave birth to the 7 guppies in there. It's so cute:)) I put the cleaner in tank, turned it on and got a soft, soothing vibration. About as strong as my cat purring. Zero suction. Water didn't even move in the tube. Thinking I was missing something I dug around in the box and found the instructions, which are basically, "plug it on, turn it on." I looked online at the company's website which just leads back to Amazon and the awesome, "isn't this just so simple" video that shows how to use it and what you get. It is still magnificent, what they are showing, and I still wish I had one. However, this sucks, but sadly it doesn't in the literal sense. There is no phone number for the company and the customer support is an email address. I assume the motor is defective but there is no excuse for this. I removed the thing that sucks up water and yes, the fan-thing that turns to pull in the water was turning. I could chop onions with it. However, that's all it did - there was no suction. After reading some "expert" fish magazine reviews and fish hobbyist sites I read this was a problem with this item even when tested for consumer ratings.

It's always frustrated me that I could never seem to really vacuum the gravel in my aquariums well because the water level would drop too much before I could do a thorough job. I never felt like I was really able to get all of the muck out that I could, even with weekly water changes. And while I was intrigued by the Fluval, I just couldn't bring myself to cough up $70+ for one. When I saw the NICREW, it seemed like a good option. I took my time and checked out a few reviews and figured that I could always return it if it didn't work.Out of the box, the device was easy to put together and I immediately set out to test it and do a quick cleaning of my gravel in the two tanks. While the suction wasn't enough to eat up my gravel, the amount of muck that came up in just a few minutes was amazing. And as expected, the water got a little cloudy afterwards, but I had been warned that this would happen. Cleaning the filters was pretty easy and it looks like using the device for water changes will be equally simple. Will probably add a bit of filter floss to see if that can help with the post-vacuum cloudiness but it's not that big a deal. It might not be the very best vacuum, but for the price it seems to punch well above its weight.

Could NEVER get a the gravity gravel vacs to work and trying to hook it up to the sink without it falling out was a nightmare. This automatic gravel cleaner is so worth it. I went back and forth on whether to spend the money on it and I'm so glad I did. It does a great job and is so worth it not to have to go through the hassle of the other gravel cleaners out there.

I have used this twice now and am pleased with the ease of set up and use. I had no problem putting it together and operating it. I have a 100 gallon tank and thought I would need the extender tube but didn't. It's quieter than I expected it to be and does a decent job of suctioning. I have sand as my substrate (the item description doesn't say it's not suitable for sand but the manual that comes in the box does), but so far I haven't had an issue. It doesn't seem to suck up any sand, although I'm careful not to push it down too far in the substrate. It does work much better when holding it vertically rather than at an angle. To me the downside is taking out and re-inserting the filter. For this alone I took away two stars. It's an incredibly poor design and nearly impossible to get the filter back in once you take it out to clean it. I broke one filter trying to get it back in, and my husband also had a difficult time. If not for this I would rate it more highly, but it's really a disappointing feature of this unit. All in all I think I will like using it but will definitely not take the filter all the way out to clean it. I also like that it's electric and not battery operated.