I'm always looking for ways to save time and effort in my basement fishroom.
But despite all of my planning, until recently I was still using buckets to do water changes
on some of my tanks.
This week I'm going to show you how I put an end to that. That's coming up.
Hey everyone,
Steve Poland here, Steve Poland Cichlids, stevepolandcichlids.com
and I recently build a rack to hold four 40 gallon breeder aquariums for my basement fishroom.
And when I did that, I drilled the tanks for overflows and plumbed them in a way that allows
me to quickly and easily drain them about halfway for my partial water changes.
But unfortunately I have four other tanks where that's not an option right now.
I have two 55 gallon tanks in one rack and those are both tempered, so I couldn't rill
them at all.
And then I have two 40 gallon breeders in another rack, and while I did drill those,
I didn't plan far enough ahead. I put the holes too high, so I can't easily drain out
a meaningful amount of water.
Now as my subscribers know, I hate carrying buckets of water.
So I set about to figure out a way that I could make this easier and drain water without
buckets, but also without doing two other things that I greatly dislike:
1. Using my mouth to create a siphon. Now we've all done it, it's not the end of the
world, but why do it if you can avoid it.
And 2. Standing around and waiting. I don't want to have to babysit the hose, to make
sure it doesn't come out of the drain, and spill a bunch of water and make a big mess.
Now my solution actually came about by watching another YouTube channel.
Now I highly recommend that you subscribe to quality Youtube channels that put out great
content, even if it's not necessarily related to the exact type of fish or aquarium that
you keep yourself.
For example, I subscribe to Dustin's Fish Tanks. It's a big big channel but it's primarily
focused on planted tanks.
And I don't have planted tanks. As in, like I don't have a single plant.
But I still watch all of his videos because who knows, maybe I'll learn something.
Well in this case I did. Because he did a fishroom tour with a guy who's been in the
hobby for a really long time.
And turns out, that guy a system in place that was very close to what I needed to do.
So I decided on a modified version of his system.
The first step was to tee off my existing plumbing to my floor drain so that I could
connect a hose.
That was easy enough. Cut the PVC, glue in the fittings, and screw in a hose barb.
I went with braided hose this time because I knew I would be moving it around the room
and I didn't want to worry about it kinking up.
At the other end are some PVC fittings connected together that can be hooked on the rim of
the tank.
This part could really be customized in a bunch of different ways but there are a few
things that I knew I wanted.
First, I wanted to be able to disconnect the length of PVC that goes down into the tank
so that I could snap it out depending on the depth of the tank and the amount of water
I wanted to drain.
So did not glue that part.
Side note, it's also a good idea to throw a strainer on there if you plan to drain any
tanks with smaller fish in them.
Second, I included a ball valve so that I could shut it off without having to take it
out of the tank. Not critical but easy enough to throw on there.
And third, I included a quick disconnect so that I could use a gravel vac attachment instead
of the regular hook.
That quick disconnect is connected to the braided hose with a barb fitting and clamp
just like the drain side.
It only takes seconds to switch back and forth.
I saved my favorite part for last, which is a siphon starter that I got from a water changer
commonly sold in pet stores.
I added this in the middle between the quick disconnect and the drain.
I just squeeze it and the water is flowing right away.
I'm actually on the lookout for a larger version of this siphon starter because I feel at this
moment it's a bottleneck in my flow rate.
But even if it's not a perfect drain and a super fast flow, it's still unattended. I
can start it and walk away.
So no buckets, no mouth siphoning, and no standing around and waiting.
I'm really happy with this system so far and I couldn't imagine going back.
The next project is a easy fill system to go along with this drain system. I'll show
you that in a future video.
As always I'd love to hear your feedback on this system down in the comments.
And if this is your first time here at Steve Poland Cichlids then I would love to have
you subscribe.
Because each week I bring you a new video sharing my experiences in the aquarium hobby.
I give updates on my tanks, review products, show you DIY projects
and share tips and tricks to help you take your tanks to the next level.
Hit subscribe today to follow along.
Have a good one!