Common Sense Or

[charlton]

I set up my tank in jan this year after buying all the equipment and doing a fishless cycle i added my stock. Carrying out weekly water changes with my vac/syphon, i always used the syphon in the way i assummed it should be used (with the larger end sucking the water) i always struggled to pick all the waste on the bottom. Today i had a brainwave and used it the otherway round, hence the flow of water going through the smaller end travelling alot faster and manged to clean the bottom much better than before. Have i been using it the wrong way or have i just made aquarium cleaning history, either way it worked much much better !! thought i'd just share this with everyone, you can either laugh at my stupitity or make use of my findings, makes complete sense and can't believe i didn't think of it before and i've been struggling for the last 6 months !!

cheers

charlton

 

[Miss Wiggle]

ha ha no you were doing it the 'right' way. But a lot of people find it's easier to pick up waste using the smaller end where the flow rate is faster. I just siphon with a straight tube tbh, have to be careful though doing that as there's no guard, accidentally siphoned a cardinal tetras out of the tank and into a drum of water last week........ first time i've ever siphoned a fish out of a tank! Fish is absolutley fine but I don't think he'll do it again in a hurry!! lol

 

[Esfa]

i agree with miss wiggle

i use the smaller end because it picks up more crap and is easier to get into corners and things.

 

[charlton]

ha ha no you were doing it the 'right' way. But a lot of people find it's easier to pick up waste using the smaller end where the flow rate is faster. I just siphon with a straight tube tbh, have to be careful though doing that as there's no guard, accidentally siphoned a cardinal tetras out of the tank and into a drum of water last week........ first time i've ever siphoned a fish out of a tank! Fish is absolutley fine but I don't think he'll do it again in a hurry!! lol

and there was me thinking i might of thought of something that no one else had before, glad your fish was ok ! Must of been like a massive water chute !!

 

[waterdrop]

Gotta love that image of the ultimate fish water slide event - can just hear MW giving a yelp seeing it happen...

I think gravel size makes a difference. Sometimes the smaller sands can shuffle around in a wider gravel cleaning bell without getting sucked down the tube. If you have larger heavier gravel, its less likely to get pulled into the siphon.

Of course, you really can control the whole thing with any suction rate by just holding the end farther away from things that might get sucked down.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[tenohfive]

I'm far too clumsy to use the small end, I've lost track of the number of times I've got gravel stuck in the pipe and spent hours trying to force it back through.