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drsoda007

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Hi Guys,

To gravel siphon to i have to put my gravel siphon onto the gravel and suck the gravel out OR just change the water (will that clean the gravel?)

BTW- I'm only ten so don't use silly words (but don't under estimate me!, please it drives me insane!!!)

And I just wanna say thanks to everyone on this forum for dedicating their time to helping out the newbies!

Especially I want to mention Miss Wiggle, waterdrop and MANY others (like kj2302)who helped me like i was part of their family! SO THANKS 2 EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank You,

Love Sophie :good:
 
hiya

the way a gravel syphon works is u dig it in the gravel it will suck the gravel up and inch or so swirling it around collecting the dirt in the water that is been syphoned :) if that makes sense that is lol


hope that helps jen
 
Yes, that's a pretty clear description by Jen. At some point I found I was being a bit too timid, you can push the big tube all the way down in the gravel to the bottom glass (well, don't push too hard, never good to be too rough inside your tank) and all the gravel inside the tube will churn around and a lot of debris, looking like dust, will flow up with the outgoing water. Be careful not to chop off the roots of your live plants if you have any, but you can get pretty close to them.

Don't be concerned if you can't do all the gravel in a single water change, just remember and do a different part of the gravel on the next water change.

Here's a video I found of someone showing a way to start a gravel siphon:

http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Start-a-Gravel-Vacuum-1287

Now, that's not really the way I do mine. I have one of those long Pythons that goes down the hall and can drain into the garden or the tub. I just put the gravel part in the tank and then go to the other end and give a good intake of air from the tube with my lungs. In a few seconds, there comes the water. Then I go back and start churning the gravel with the larger diameter clear tube.

~~waterdrop~~ :cool:
 
no problem at all Sophie, hope the tanks going OK now.

what you do is start pulling water through the gravel vac, there's a few ways to get this started, personally I just suck on the end of the tube, first couple of times you'll probably get a mouthful of fish tank water but you learn to judge when to stop sucking so you don't get that anymore!! Another easy way is to submerge the whole tube in the tank, making sure it fills up totally with water. Then put your thumb over the small end and lift it out of the tank and into a bucket making sure you keep the big end under water, when the small end is in the bucket just take your finger off the tube and water will start flowing through. So once the water is flowing through you just get the big end and push it down into the gravel, you'll see a load of muck rising up the tube, keep doing this moving around the tank and sucking up mcuk through the tube. Keep doing this until you've taken enough water out of the tank for your weekly water change. Then just add some tap water conditioner to the tank and pour clean water back in. Gravel cleaned and water changed in one. :good:
 

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