Easier water change

kashman100 · Oct 2, 2016

Wanted to share what I use to make water changes easier. Its a maxi-jet 1200 pump (OR any small pump). About 6 ft of 1/2 inch pvc pipe. 1 regular 90 angle. 1 90 with male on 1 side and female on the other side. 1 bungee cord. And a simple on off switch. The male side of the 90 doesn't get glued and is what is used as the swivel. I think they make an actual swivel in 3/4 if you wanted to eliminate the bungee cord. Anyway most this is already had laying around and works great.

MTWiley · Oct 2, 2016

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this. Are you just using it to pump water in/out of your display tank? Any reason to go with rigid pvc vs a flexible tubing that you can just push onto the maxijet?

kashman100 · Oct 2, 2016

For smaller tank where you are changing a few buckets. Pump old water out and pump newly mixed saltwater in. Easier and faster than siphon. Flexible tubing will float and is hard to control.

kashman100 · Oct 2, 2016

mcarroll · Oct 2, 2016

A hose can't be unattended without something to hold it in place....and even then hoses have a tendency to "fight back"

It looks like this could be used unattended.

michael.cser20 · Oct 2, 2016

I use a 1 1/2 inch hose and start a syphon. I fill a 10 gallon bucket in a min or something. Very easy and cheap

MTWiley · Oct 3, 2016

mcarroll said:
A hose can't be unattended without something to hold it in place....and even then hoses have a tendency to "fight back"

It looks like this could be used unattended.

That seems like a recipe for disaster

Webslinger · Oct 3, 2016

Wouldn't it be easier to just lift the bucket and dump the water into the tank? It's only 5 gallons.

revhtree · Oct 3, 2016

HA! Very cool!

djd3mon · Oct 3, 2016

Pretty cool idea. I get tired or lifting the 5 gallon buckets every day to top off my 2 frag tanks.

adestafi · Oct 4, 2016

Looks like a good solution and inexpensive. Flex hose moves too much so this solves that dilemma.

Damion · Oct 4, 2016

Lazy, comes with an elevated budget in my opinion. That's why I love my Apex DOS, which changes 2 gallons of water for me everyday.

Rodorodz · Oct 4, 2016

Thats nice... And are you able to clean the sand with it?

Damion · Oct 4, 2016

My engineer gobies do that for me.

kashman100 · Oct 4, 2016

I have used it to clean sand and it works good. If you get the detritus or diatoms suspended in the water next to it it will suck it right out. My 9 year old son uses it for water changes and can do it by himself. With a hose he was making an absolute mess lol and couldn't pick up the bucket to pour in the new water. If you bought everything new It would be less than $20. I posted it because i know this will make it easier for some people to do water changes.

Stevenbulbus · Oct 5, 2016

Great idea

Delta1389 · Oct 5, 2016

I use flexible clear tubing and just siphon out into a marked 5 gallon bucket so I know how much I'm taking out. Then I fill that same bucket and set it on top of my canopy and open the valve on the bottom and let gravity do the rest.

ithk21620 · Oct 15, 2016

Delta1389 said:
I use flexible clear tubing and just siphon out into a marked 5 gallon bucket so I know how much I'm taking out. Then I fill that same bucket and set it on top of my canopy and open the valve on the bottom and let gravity do the rest.

I know it's only short contact time but brass/metal fittings are not good. They can leach copper and other metals which will effect the tank, especially inverts.

Delta1389 · Oct 15, 2016

ithk21620 said:
I know it's only short contact time but brass/metal fittings are not good. They can leach copper and other metals which will effect the tank, especially inverts.

I will keep that in mind. What do you recommend in place of the metal spigot? I've been using it this way for around 7 months and haven't run into any issues with it, yet. I have a shrimp, crabs, snails, and a few corals with no ill effects.

ithk21620 · Oct 15, 2016

Delta1389 said:
I will keep that in mind. What do you recommend in place of the metal spigot? I've been using it this way for around 7 months and haven't run into any issues with it, yet. I have a shrimp, crabs, snails, and a few corals with no ill effects.

They make pvc spigots as well and you can find them at your local hardware store and all the big box stores. Rule of thumb is to use all plastic when possible. Like I said it seems like it's just a short time in the bucket so you probably won't see any I'll effect but if you were to keep RO / Saltwater on hand and used metal fittings in your storage tanks you would have more issues. Especially the RO water. RO water is pure so it will strip anything it can from your storage tank / plumbing.