Siphoning Troubles

[bymauldin]

I have a 10 gallon tank. I bought one of the mini self starting siphons from Wal-Mart. I can not get that thing to work for the life of me!! It seems that maybe even the mini siphon is too big. The instructions for the self start say to place the siphon completely under water and move it back and forth rapidly to get it started sucking in the water. Well, when I 'rapidly move it back and forth' it's like a freaking tidal wave in my tank since it's so small. All my poor fish are freaking out. Once the siphon finally does start it hardly even sucks hard enough to remove the debris. Because of this, for the last month I've only been doing partial water changes. Yesterday when I did my water change though I noticed a ton of debris floating around in the water. Can anybody offer any suggestions on a better way to siphon or clean the gravel. I have dwarf puffers and I feed them a lot of tiny pest snails and I have a ton of shells laying around in the gravel that I need to get rid of.

I really would appreciate any help or suggestions. Thanks.

 

[Don Trinko]

I suck on the end of the hose. With care you won't get a mouth full of water. Another method is to put the entire syphon in the tank under water and get all the air out. Then put your finger over the small end and put it down in the bucket that you are syphoning to and remove your finger. Don T.

 

[dwarfgourami]

I get better results moving it slowly up and down in the water, as if I was trying to bail out through the pipe. Once it starts flowing into the bucket (which has to be a good deal lower than the tank) I quickly stick the gravel vac head down to the bottom of the tank and it carries on flowing.

 

[rdd1952]

I put the end in my bucket, stick the siphon end in the tank, fill it with water, lift it up to start the water going down the tube and then simply stick it back in the tank. It will start to siphon. You can also run it full of water in the sink, hold the end closed until you can get it to the tank and then let it start flowing.

 

[gilaesther]

I put the end in my bucket, stick the siphon end in the tank, fill it with water, lift it up to start the water going down the tube and then simply stick it back in the tank. It will start to siphon. You can also run it full of water in the sink, hold the end closed until you can get it to the tank and then let it start flowing.

That's what I do - the exact directions on the siphon I have

 

[iairj84]

I use my homemade python Saves me many backaches from carrying buckets!

 

[rdd1952]

I put the end in my bucket, stick the siphon end in the tank, fill it with water, lift it up to start the water going down the tube and then simply stick it back in the tank. It will start to siphon. You can also run it full of water in the sink, hold the end closed until you can get it to the tank and then let it start flowing.

That's what I do - the exact directions on the siphon I have

My directions actually say to move it up and down which doesn't work too well and you risk hitting a fish too.

 

[Kevinator]

I bought the same exact one from Wal Mart, the instructions are vague at best! What I did with mine was kind of angle it towards the side of the tank a bit and pump it 2 or 3 times and it should start right up.

 

[Danno]

When I started fish keeping it took me so long to figure out how to syphon.

I get lazy and just suck on the end, but on my saltwater I use the dip method seeing their are a lot of poisonous and bad things in saltwater tanks.