What Do You All Use To Siphon Water Out?

[rich_london]

Hi all,

I've been keeping fish for roughly 15 years, I have a Juwel 190 litre corner tank and a smaller 60 litre tank. I change around 15-20% of the water every 10-14 days and am lucky to have the larger tank by the window, so I just siphon the water onto the plants outside.

I'm planning on upgrading the 60l tank to a 400-500 litre tank but this will be away from the window or any bathroom / kitchen. I'm dreading the idea of siphoning around 100 litres of water into my 10 litre bucket, which means 10 trips to empty it and then another 10 trips to top up the tank.

How do you guys cope with larger aquaria?

 

[fluttermoth]

Hose, mate.

This is my personal method. It's slow, but there's no lugging of buckets, apart from the couple you use for cleaning the substrate.

Attach your hose to the tap (I use the cold one because I don't have a mixer tap) and get the other end in the tank. I tuck mine under the tank hood so the end is the right depth for the amount of water I want to remove (and all my tanks get 50% a week).

Turn on the tap (not too fast!) until no more bubbles come out. Then move the tap end of the hose (mine pulls off the tap adaptor and I jam my thumb over the end) down the drain, onto the lawn, whatever, and your syphon should start; if it doesn't you can suck on it, or reattach it to the tap and fill the hose some more.

Once the tank is emptied down, re-attach your hose to the tap, add enough dechlorinator for the whole tank's volume; this is important as some of the dechlor gets bound up by organic molecules present in the tan,) and then trickle your new water back in.

Obviously if you have a mixer tap, or a shower you can attach your hose to, then you'll be able to temperature match and refill a lot quicker, but I'm stuck using straight cold, so I might take an hour or even two to refill a 240l tank, as I don't want to shock the fish.

DO NOT wander off, start questing on World of Warcraft, or other such foolishness when you're refilling, or you WILL end up with wet floors at some point! You can tell I speak from bitter experience on that one!

 

[Noahs ark6]

http/www.ebay.co.u...=item2ec1432b11
And get a large container (60 litres) on wheels

 

[phantomlink]

Hose, mate.

This is my personal method. It's slow, but there's no lugging of buckets, apart from the couple you use for cleaning the substrate.

Attach your hose to the tap (I use the cold one because I don't have a mixer tap) and get the other end in the tank. I tuck mine under the tank hood so the end is the right depth for the amount of water I want to remove (and all my tanks get 50% a week).

Turn on the tap (not too fast!) until no more bubbles come out. Then move the tap end of the hose (mine pulls off the tap adaptor and I jam my thumb over the end) down the drain, onto the lawn, whatever, and your syphon should start; if it doesn't you can suck on it, or reattach it to the tap and fill the hose some more.

Once the tank is emptied down, re-attach your hose to the tap, add enough dechlorinator for the whole tank's volume; this is important as some of the dechlor gets bound up by organic molecules present in the tan,) and then trickle your new water back in.

Obviously if you have a mixer tap, or a shower you can attach your hose to, then you'll be able to temperature match and refill a lot quicker, but I'm stuck using straight cold, so I might take an hour or even two to refill a 240l tank, as I don't want to shock the fish.

DO NOT wander off, start questing on World of Warcraft, or other such foolishness when you're refilling, or you WILL end up with wet floors at some point! You can tell I speak from bitter experience on that one!

so like a python without all the switches and T-valve? I'm trying to understand your method to get the suction to work

 

[fluttermoth]

Basically, yes. You just need to get all the air out of the hose before the syphon will start, so I've found attaching it to the tap and forcing the air out that way works best.

 

[phantomlink]

I was looking around for a way to have a DIY python but my options are limited here so what I was thinking was just use the gravel cleaner/bucket to get the waste out of the tank, and just use a really long clear hose to suck all the water out of the tank and just use a usual hose/tap adapter to put the water back in. My tub is lower then my tank so it will keep the suction going, I'm just wondering if the hose going up into the tub will make things complicated

 

[Yanks15]

I do exactly what phantomlink described. I use a thin, long length standard syphon into a bucket to clean waste and have water to clean my filters and at the same time I use a python to remove just water. When I'm done removing enough water, I switch the flow on the python and re-fill. Takes a lot less time to maintain my tank now with this method.


Thanks,
Steve

 

[rich_london]

Thanks for your ideas guys. My problem is that the tank is neither near a window nor a sink so the hose method from the tap or even to the outside to drain onto plants / garden just won't work. I guess I'll just have to lug buckets back and forth then

 

[Aquascaper]

I have a Trigon 190 in the living room, near a window and a garden tap on the otherside of the wall.

All I need to do is attach the garden hose, run until the air is out then disconnect and back-siphon into the flowerbeds.
To refill I just reconnect the tap and fill.

When it was in the other corner away from the window I had a hose going under the floor and through a vent which meant I just had to stick the hose in the tank, go outside and suck on the hose to start syphoning.

With regards to your situation, a python linked to the nearest tap/sink would work ok. It doesn't matter really how far from the tap the tank is as it uses water pressure to fill and as long as the siphon starts it will drain even if it has to go uphill slightly (you may not get great flow though)

 

[phoenixgsd]

its about 8ft to the sink from my tank and i now use a electric pump to take water out and put water back in, a cracking suggestion from tcamos on here

 

[fluttermoth]

One of my tanks is a good 20' from any outside doors or taps; just get a longer hose; I got a 50' one