Good battery powered siphon?

[beatsland]

DIY water change pump !

This is what I did for my 90g water changes.

I use a bilge pump with a 20 ft hose and a 12volt battery, then I got a 32 gallon rubbermaid trash can that I fill with water and treat it while the bilge pump is emptying the water of the tank. Then just put the pump on the trash can full of water and the hose on the tank and your done !

It works great, no mess, quick and easy !
I think I paid less than $60 for all the materials, I also extended the wires of the pump and put battery clamps at the end.

 

[Obelisk]

Why not consider a water pump ? They come in all sizes and will easily siphon water out of your tank over any distance you need. Here is a link to the eheim hobby pump (can be used in and out of water):

http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsCA/ctl3684/cp48948/si1382911/cl0/eheimhobbypump1250

This is what I did for my 90g water changes.

I use a bilge pump with a 20 ft hose and a 12volt battery, then I got a 32 gallon rubbermaid trash can that I fill with water and treat it while the bilge pump is emptying the water of the tank. Then just put the pump on the trash can full of water and the hose on the tank and your done !

It works great, no mess, quick and easy !
I think I paid less than $60 for all the materials, I also extended the wires of the pump and put battery clamps at the end.

I did not know about those. I'll look into them though.

Anyway, I'll keep you guys posted on what I end up getting and how it works out.

Thanks for the advice guys.

 

[7itanium]

I wish I could help.. I use a python and I modified it to drain into my washer drain in my basement instead of my sink (if that helps).. just attached a hose to the drain portion with a hose clamp and stuck it in the washer drain.

I dont know of a battery operated syphon.. but I am sure there is some out there somewhere

also... you said you "use the drain outside" to do maintenence on your tanks... why not just hook up a python or aqueon water changer to the outside faucet? that would allow you to drain your tanks and fill them with 1 unit and it would only require the effort of hooking it up

 

[Obelisk]

I wish I could help.. I use a python and I modified it to drain into my washer drain in my basement instead of my sink (if that helps).. just attached a hose to the drain portion with a hose clamp and stuck it in the washer drain.

I dont know of a battery operated syphon.. but I am sure there is some out there somewhere

also... you said you "use the drain outside" to do maintenence on your tanks... why not just hook up a python or aqueon water changer to the outside faucet? that would allow you to drain your tanks and fill them with 1 unit and it would only require the effort of hooking it up

That's what I'm doing right now. I hook the python up to a faucet outside.

Anyway, I ordered something that will allow me to just drain the tanks through an opening in my garage and fill them back up by hooking it up to the closest faucet inside the house.

 

[Obelisk]

I ended up ordering one of these:

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=12752

It's self-starting and doesn't need a battery or anything. I'll let you guys know if the product really works for me or not.

 

[SubRosa]

There is no such thing as a good battery operated gravel vac. Even Eheim's is a piece of junk and considering the quality of their other products it tells you that the concept is fundamentally flawed. Gravity is free and more effective. Just get a long enough hose to put the water where you want it and let gravity do its thing.

 

[chucke]

It’s a shame your rents or whoever really caress that much about fish water going down the drain. Just use a little soft scrub/comet after your done and clean it out. Bleach kills anything… basically.

 

[nc0gnet0]

Nothing is going to beat good inine sump to clean the gravel, nothing. Small section of hose tied to a strainer (to prevent gravel from entering) on the inlet side and wht ever lenght of hose you need to get to a drain, toilet, sink, window, etc on the output side. Swirl the input hose through the gravel in small circles and your doing your water changes at the same time you clean your gravel. Something simular to this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Wayne-PC2-115-V...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item48388d485a

A bit more expensive then gravel vac but it can be used for several different tasks whereas a gravel vac is just a gravel vac.

 

[Obelisk]

It’s a shame your rents or whoever really caress that much about fish water going down the drain. Just use a little soft scrub/comet after your done and clean it out. Bleach kills anything… basically.

Yeah, it's that I have to follow my family's rules. I've been able to convince them to allow me to do several things as far as pets go, so I really don't want to push it.

Emptying it through a opening in my garage won't lead to me getting b**ched at, so I'll be glad with that.

 

[Obelisk]

Nothing is going to beat good inine sump to clean the gravel, nothing. Small section of hose tied to a strainer (to prevent gravel from entering) on the inlet side and wht ever lenght of hose you need to get to a drain, toilet, sink, window, etc on the output side. Swirl the input hose through the gravel in small circles and your doing your water changes at the same time you clean your gravel. Something simular to this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Wayne-PC2-115-V...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item48388d485a

A bit more expensive then gravel vac but it can be used for several different tasks whereas a gravel vac is just a gravel vac.

I didn't know there was such a variety of products for this purpose. If the gravel cleaner that I ordered doesn't do the trick, I'll probably go for one of these, which Nessie showed:

http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsCA/ctl3684/cp48948/si1382911/cl0/eheimhobbypump1250

There is no such thing as a good battery operated gravel vac. Even Eheim's is a piece of junk and considering the quality of their other products it tells you that the concept is fundamentally flawed. Gravity is free and more effective. Just get a long enough hose to put the water where you want it and let gravity do its thing.

I was starting to get a feeling that those weren't really worth it, so I ordered something else that's self-starting but doesn't use batteries or anything.