H0pefulDad
Fish Fanatic
Look, I have a pretty simple siphon, one that online said it was good for 10 gallon tanks. That might have been at the edge of the range it covered, but it was still in there.
I have a 10 gal tank with sand substrate that I need to clean, but the damn thing won't work. I've seen all those videos, I know how to start the siphon: fill it with water, let the top part drain until only a bit of water is left, pop it back in. Boom, should start siphoning. Only mine doesn't. I've done that exact process over and over, and it always only siphons for a single second before stopping. I can't think of a single thing I'm doing wrong, and any suggestions I get here for what I am will probably be ruled out immediately, so it must be because of the siphon itself. Here is a picture of it with my tank:
As you can see, I can't quite fully submerge the top part of the tube completely vertically. The one time I did actually manage to get it to siphon continuously was when I managed to submerge the entire top tube by tilting it, but then I lifted part of it out of the water and it kept going, so I just don't understand. I can't recreate that now anyways, and there's a lot of gunk on my substrate that I need to clean. So my question is, is this siphon just too big for my tank? Is the brand I got it from full of liars by claiming it would work for a 10 gal tank, and I should get the next size down? I genuinely can't think of any other reason it only worked for me once.
I have a 10 gal tank with sand substrate that I need to clean, but the damn thing won't work. I've seen all those videos, I know how to start the siphon: fill it with water, let the top part drain until only a bit of water is left, pop it back in. Boom, should start siphoning. Only mine doesn't. I've done that exact process over and over, and it always only siphons for a single second before stopping. I can't think of a single thing I'm doing wrong, and any suggestions I get here for what I am will probably be ruled out immediately, so it must be because of the siphon itself. Here is a picture of it with my tank:
As you can see, I can't quite fully submerge the top part of the tube completely vertically. The one time I did actually manage to get it to siphon continuously was when I managed to submerge the entire top tube by tilting it, but then I lifted part of it out of the water and it kept going, so I just don't understand. I can't recreate that now anyways, and there's a lot of gunk on my substrate that I need to clean. So my question is, is this siphon just too big for my tank? Is the brand I got it from full of liars by claiming it would work for a 10 gal tank, and I should get the next size down? I genuinely can't think of any other reason it only worked for me once.