# Involuntary mopping and the modern water change....



## TexasTanker (May 5, 2010)

I've included photos of the set up below. Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine I cannot stand for long periods, much less hump buckets across my house for protracted periods of time. For the past week and until today I had just been changing 5 gallons a day in my 55 gallon tank in stead of a big weekly. I was doing 1-2 in my ten gallon fry tank every day. Thanks to modern economics, namely my blowing an inordinate amount of money to entertain my father who was supposed to be doing this for me but thought it was stupid:roll:, I couldn't afford the $70 is would have cost to buy the sink attachment and extension hoses to do changes from the tap. SO... I improvised. For $17 I was able to acquire 2 - 25 foot RV drinking water hoses (that is the nearest sink) the coupler from the faucet to the hose and some PVC to shape a diffuser/hose holder. (think cursive U) In theory everything should have gone down without a drop of water hitting the floor.

Enter Jaws music... instead I have about ten towels on my living room floor and another five in the kitchen. Everything leaked when I did a dry run in the kitchen... rather a wet run. I fixed that, then put everything in place. I got the water to temp by running it through the spray nozel on the sink. Once that was good, I let it go the 55 gallon that was down about 30 gallons. That filled without issue. The problem came when it was time to pull the PVC diffuser out. The whole thing fell apart. and about of gallon went on the floor. We got that covered then repeated the process on the ten gallon tank across the room sans the upturn of the diffuser. Emptying the tank dumped a bunch of water cause the drain hose fell out of the window. I guess I'll need a longer one with a weight on it.

So the question I pose to ya'll. Is there something in my technique that can be fine tuned? Or a trick that one of you savvy fish people know that is eluding me? Or is this just beginner error that will hopefully go smoother the more I do it?


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## xrayjeeper83 (Sep 6, 2009)

whats the point of the U at the bottom and then the tube going back up? I would think it would be plunty effective with just the down tube.


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## xrayjeeper83 (Sep 6, 2009)

also where did you get the parts? I looked at doing something similar but was having trouble finding a pvc pipe that went from 2in down to like a .5inch


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## TexasTanker (May 5, 2010)

xrayjeeper83 said:


> whats the point of the U at the bottom and then the tube going back up? I would think it would be plunty effective with just the down tube.


It acts as a diffuser. If I have the hose pointed straight down it will blow that gravel all over the place and I'll have to excavate to get it all back in order. By directing it back up it gets disbursed at the top of the tank and the gravel stays in place.

I got all that at Lowe's. They have all the PVC pieces you could imagine, you just have to be creative and flexible.


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## xrayjeeper83 (Sep 6, 2009)

Oh ok, that makes sense. Ill have to go check them out, homedepot didnt have crap. Can you take the diffuser off so it can act like a gravel vaccum all so?


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## TexasTanker (May 5, 2010)

this is separate from my gravel vac. the hose is fed through to the bottom of the diffuser. this keeps it in place and safe from my kids while I run through the four rooms and 40 feet to turn it on and off.


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## xrayjeeper83 (Sep 6, 2009)

I went to homedepot to get stuff to make this and they wanted 1.50 a foot for hose(not the rv stuff though, just some clear hose) that alone would have been close to 30 bucks.


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## TexasTanker (May 5, 2010)

xrayjeeper83 said:


> I went to homedepot to get stuff to make this and they wanted 1.50 a foot for hose(not the rv stuff though, just some clear hose) that alone would have been close to 30 bucks.


I got RV and camper hoses from Big Lots. They're safe for drinking water and I ran them for about an hour with hot water to be safe. Those were $5 per 25 foot. (I needed two) Then I purchased the faucet/hose coupler at Lowe's for $2.50 (make sure to get the stainless steel, copper has a tendancy to shed and is toxic for the fishies.) , and the PVC was 2' scrap for 1.25 and the two elbows for 1.30 each.

With tax the whole thing came to about $17. I was at the LFS today and saw the clear tubing version for $89 not including the additional 25' I would have needed to reach the tanks. That would have been an additional $17. I have seen it all cheaper (around 50-70) but this suits my purposes and everything can be utilized for other things if the need arises.;-)


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## xrayjeeper83 (Sep 6, 2009)

will have to take a trip to biglots then. Thanks for the info.


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## TexasTanker (May 5, 2010)

Today's change only resulted on one little spill. Yay me! Putting an extra filter on the tank resulted in a larger one. Geeze that's irritating.


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## iamntbatman (Jan 3, 2008)

Do you mind if I move this thread to the DIY section? It would probably get more traffic there and people would likely appreciate seeing how to build something like this.


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## TexasTanker (May 5, 2010)

Absolutely!


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## iamntbatman (Jan 3, 2008)

Done! There's still a redirect back in the Freshwater Equipment section that links to this new location that will expire after two weeks.

How are you dosing your water conditioner? Directly into the tank or into the line somewhere?

This device also begs the question: have you considered trying to make a Python-like device for the faucet end so that you can use it to drain the tank, too?


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## TexasTanker (May 5, 2010)

I'm actually dosing it in the diffuser. I did the math and in terms of half life, the Prime is washed out fairly quickly but is distributed through the new water much faster than simply treating the tank. I'm still learning everything and it has occurred to me that I could reverse the flow. BUT Since the water is nitrate rich I've been draining out the window to the flower bed below. I'm devising a plan for a small cistern that wan capture and hold it so the water can be used more wisely. Given that grass hates growing here because of the high concentrate of flowing salt water creeks, this seems like a positive thing. Waste not want not. 

In one or two pay days I'll put that together along with a new way to vacuum the gravel and siphon without having to disturb the detritus with obscene hand pumping to get the water out.


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