I used to work in an electroplating shop and regularly had to start siphons to empty tanks filled with acid based, cyanide based or caustic soda based plating/cleaning solutions. Trust me you don't suck on the end of the pipe! What you did was learn a load of different low risk ways ways to start a siphon, most of them have been mentioned above but the one I didn't see is probably the simplest of all. Just push an extra foot or two of pipe into the water then put your finger over the free end and pull the pipe into the siphon position, this pulls the fluid filled pipe out of the tank and over the side, now take your finger off and the siphon will flow, works every time and can be done without getting your hands or any other part of you wet.
