Cazza
Member
Hopefully this is in the right place!
I recently purchased this contraption, as I had an Amazon voucher that needed using. I also purchased a Hozelock mixer tap hose adapter.
Initial thoughts on unboxing: decent quality, but the gravel cleaner tube doesn't fit. I had an old one, that was fractionally smaller and that slotted in perfectly. I've read in some of the reviews that people have gently heated the plastic to get it to fit. Expensive for what it is, although way cheaper than the Python one!
First use: A little fiddly- my fault though, as I was just trying to work out the best way to use it with my set up. The hose is the perfect length and reaches from my kitchen to the tank with around 1-2m to spare. The Hozelock adapter leaked a bit, so had a couple of goes at re-seating it. It was then water-tight. Ran the water into the sink, to get the correct temp (judged by hand). Then, with the lever in the tank closed, I switched the lever at the sink end in order to fill the hose and turned the tap on. A little bit of water bubbled out at tank end, but that was fine. Tap off again. Then, I opened the tank end lever and switched the sink lever over to drain into the sink. Tap on again and I increased the flow from the tap for a few seconds, until I could see that the water from the tank was travelling through the hose to the sink. Next, I turned off the tap again and the water continued to drain from the tank, as the siphon had been started. I had read some reviews where people thought they needed to keep the tap running (wasting loads of water), but this wasn't the case. The flow was steady (not brilliant for vaccing the substrate, but I don't want to do that anyway).
Once I'd drained around 40%, I added some Seachem Prime to the tank, turned the tap back on and turned the lever at the sink end to reverse the flow. This way was much quicker and the tank was full in no time at all. I kept an eye on the temp, but it was fine. Once full, I simply turned the tap off, took the hose out of the tank and lay that end out of the door and onto the patio. I then took the other end off the tap and steadily coiled the hose up, draining it onto the patio. Job done!
All in all, it took around 40 minutes. I've used it twice since and it's so easy and straightforward- time down to around 20 minutes. Most of that time is the time it takes to drain the tank, when you can just sit down and have a cuppa. The setup (literally 2 mins) and refill (5 mins) is very quick. No buckets, no mess and very, very easy, once you've worked it out. Yes, pricy for what it is (around £35), but I would thoroughly recommend it- water changes are no longer tiresome at all. I hated using buckets and a siphon- messy, heavy, took ages etc.
I recently purchased this contraption, as I had an Amazon voucher that needed using. I also purchased a Hozelock mixer tap hose adapter.
Initial thoughts on unboxing: decent quality, but the gravel cleaner tube doesn't fit. I had an old one, that was fractionally smaller and that slotted in perfectly. I've read in some of the reviews that people have gently heated the plastic to get it to fit. Expensive for what it is, although way cheaper than the Python one!
First use: A little fiddly- my fault though, as I was just trying to work out the best way to use it with my set up. The hose is the perfect length and reaches from my kitchen to the tank with around 1-2m to spare. The Hozelock adapter leaked a bit, so had a couple of goes at re-seating it. It was then water-tight. Ran the water into the sink, to get the correct temp (judged by hand). Then, with the lever in the tank closed, I switched the lever at the sink end in order to fill the hose and turned the tap on. A little bit of water bubbled out at tank end, but that was fine. Tap off again. Then, I opened the tank end lever and switched the sink lever over to drain into the sink. Tap on again and I increased the flow from the tap for a few seconds, until I could see that the water from the tank was travelling through the hose to the sink. Next, I turned off the tap again and the water continued to drain from the tank, as the siphon had been started. I had read some reviews where people thought they needed to keep the tap running (wasting loads of water), but this wasn't the case. The flow was steady (not brilliant for vaccing the substrate, but I don't want to do that anyway).
Once I'd drained around 40%, I added some Seachem Prime to the tank, turned the tap back on and turned the lever at the sink end to reverse the flow. This way was much quicker and the tank was full in no time at all. I kept an eye on the temp, but it was fine. Once full, I simply turned the tap off, took the hose out of the tank and lay that end out of the door and onto the patio. I then took the other end off the tap and steadily coiled the hose up, draining it onto the patio. Job done!
All in all, it took around 40 minutes. I've used it twice since and it's so easy and straightforward- time down to around 20 minutes. Most of that time is the time it takes to drain the tank, when you can just sit down and have a cuppa. The setup (literally 2 mins) and refill (5 mins) is very quick. No buckets, no mess and very, very easy, once you've worked it out. Yes, pricy for what it is (around £35), but I would thoroughly recommend it- water changes are no longer tiresome at all. I hated using buckets and a siphon- messy, heavy, took ages etc.
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