Tetra Water Cleaner Gravel Siphon for Aquariums, Easily Clean Freshwater Aquariums

Tetra Water Maintence Items for Aquariums - Makes Water Changes EasyWater Cleaner ~ "2-55 gallon" ~ $10.49Haven't used it yet but initial inspection gets a pass. The tubing, looks to be 3/8 ID 1/2 OD, is nice, not easily kinked, and came kink free. And that size tubing is a nice middle of the road for small to medium sized tanks. And the vac chamber is nice and clear so you can see what you're vaccing. That feature alone is why I chose this one over the no name models that had the same features plus a flow control valve... they all have smokey or milky tinted vac tubes which is idiotic to me. The whole reason you use these things is to vac, you would think you want to see what you're vacuuming clearly. And some of them put the screen on the bottom of the vac tube so it can't even function to swirl the substrate and separate out the detritus. And any that actually had nice clear chambers, maybe even a little longer, had no primer bulb. So this one ticked the most boxes.Anyway this one has a nice clear vac chamber and it's just long enough at around 4.5 inches to do what it needs to do in small/medium tanks with not too deep substrate. I don''t know why it couldn't be a little longer but you can't have everything. And it has a decent looking screen at the top of the chamber. Given the size of the tubing and lack of flow control you'd have to be kinking the tube to regulate flow on really small tanks under 10 gallons or the tank will be empty before you're done vaccing. And With the short-ish vac tube it seems less than ideal for anything larger or with deeper substrate.I gave the primer bulb a bunch of squeezing and torqued on the nipples a bit and it seems like it will hold together for the foreseeable future. I will say the way the nipples attach to the primer bulb seem to be female slip fittings that are glued on and you hear a little crackling glue if you distort the bulb too close to the nipples. But even with that it does hold suction and pressure just fine and if it ever came loose with age I'd have no problem redoing it with silicone if I like the vac. And the nipples on the bulb have no barbs to stop the tubing from backing off but the tubing seems to hold on fine once seated all the way on. They were just barely seated on as it came, so needed to be pushed down till they hit home, but that's no problem. And the vac chamber has a barbed nipple.The bucket clip seems like it's made from good plastic, not brittle, and I really appreciate that being included. I will search for some kind of spare valve or something to put on the bucket end of the hose because as it stands there's nothing to stop the hose from easily slipping up and out of the bucket clip... but no biggie and glad to have the clip.The one glaring omission other than a flow control which isn't really a necessity as you can kink the tube, is a rigid pipe leading up to the vac chamber so you can easily direct it around. You figure with the total length of the vac chamber being maybe 5" a simple 12" rigid piece would allow much easier control with minimal hand dunking in all the medium sized tanks and still not be so long as to be cumbersome in a 5.5 or 10 gallon, or you could just not use it if you only had tiny tanks. Either that or give us a longer vac chamber.So all in all not bad, and certainly not bad for $10. I'd be content paying a few dollars more if it came with a flow control valve and rigid stem/wand, but I get them wanting to keep it in the $10 range. And they did hit a really nice sweet spot of quality and features for the price.

I like the product, it works well - probably easier with a smaller tank, I only say that because it’s quite the workout for your arm after squeezing for a couple minutes (I have a 20 gallon). It gets the job done for a cheaper price!

Finally used it to clean my betta's tank. Was very useful. Took me a bit to really get the hang of it, but worked great. Once you create suction and the water starts flowing, just go up and down with the hollow tube. Every once in a while, press the bulb to increase the suction again and continue. I used it on a small tank, so I just kept adding water to the tank when it would get low. If you have a larger tank, you'll probably be able to use this amd not have to refill your tank. My tank was pretty dirty so that played a part in how much I had to clean it as well. Also helps if the tank is too big to move or just don't want to empty it, clean the substrate, and set it up again. Good product. Glad I got it.

If you have smaller tanks this is a solid way to perform water changes. I would say around 20 gallons is the sweet spot. You could definitely do bigger tanks, but the flow is a bit on the slower side. I’ve always used the “suck on the hose” method to get the siphon working but this just simplifies it.The tubing is on the smaller size. It’s around a 9/12 ID or 10/12 ID. I ended up modifying it since I didn’t need the gravel suction part. I mainly just wanted the hand pump to get the siphon going. The tubing is on the harder /rigid side so I cut the hose and had only a few inches of the original tubing connect to the hand pump then used my own 12/16” hose (which is a lot more flexible and easier to work with) to fit over it as seen in my photo. The hand pump gets it going with relative ease. All in all a solid product.

I bought this as a replacement for the one I've had for over 10 years. I was surprised by how fast it removed the water and how sturdy it felt. The vacuum part itself was a little short so that part is definitely going to be better in shorter tanks but it worked great and I didn't get fish water in my mouth why trying to get it started

Effective siphon that allows for quick cleaning and water exchange.

Not as big as I thought it would’ve been, we have little tanks under 10 gal. It serves a purpose but wish it was larger even for a 3.5 gal. Tank

The size of this gravel vacuum is perfect for my son's 10 gallon aquarium. It seems to be good quality. I wish the suction was a little better, but it does what we need it to do. It's much easier to use than one of those you have to shake up and down to get flow going.