I don't have running water in my darkroom or the luxury of a big sink. Not a big problem but I find a constant need to siphon water in order to fill and empty water baths and move water around.

I'd like to find a convenient, well made siphon hose with some sort of bulb primer to get it started. I guess I can check out automotive shops or aquarium stores but I thought that I'd ask you folks if anyone has any specific suggestions or recommendations for brands or styles before I go out and trial and error this.

Thanks

Neal,

I can tell you one not to buy. At the suggestion of APUGers in an earlier thread I bought a siphon at an Autozone store to move fixer from 16x20x6 inch stainless trays to storage plastic jugs. The combined weight and moving liquid, 1-2 gallons fixer was too much for me to pour accurately through a funnel into the jugs. My aim got a little sloppy and pretty soon there was fixer everywhere.

The siphon I bought does not have a brand name on it. It is about 9” long from bottom to top of pump handle and comes in a clear plastic rectangular package. There is a clear decal with OIL in ¼” black letters telling you where to lubricate. The caps and plunger are black, the body red-orange. The hoses are orange and hard as rocks. They are coiled and spring-jerk out of the bottle or tray when using the stiff plunger, not a pretty sight..

I’ve bought a 16x20x5 stainless tray with a floating lid eBay 7555034104 and will use a 2 ltr pitcher just for pouring and dipping. There is always another way.

John Powers

When I need a siphon, I just use plastic tubing, along with an automotive battery-filler bulb to prime it.

Don't be a sissy. When we used to steal gasoline out of other peoples cars we just sucked it up. Granted it tasted a little funky, but you can get use to it.

In short, just suck it up.

When I had a darkroom without running water I ran a hose from my sink to the darkroom and then dumped the used water in a five gallon pail and dumped that in the bathtub.




Michael

Neal, I'm not sure how well it would work but there is a pump and hose contraption advertised by Canadian Tire for siphoning gas from a 5 gallon container into your lawnmower or boat motor tank that is almost like a gas pump handle, but smaller. I think you just squeeze the handle until the liquid (gasoline in their example) comes out and let go to stop the flow. I believe the whole thing is plastic but if it will handle gas it should be all right for a lot of other things. Maybe there's someone here who uses this type of syphon tube.

Neal,

In cleaning up the darkroom this morning I came across the package for the siphon I said I would not recommend. It is a Koehler Enterprises RA990 Transfer Pump.

John Powers

You should be able to find a bulb siphon at most hardware stores. They're used to transfer kerosene from a storage can to a heater. Work OK but not very flexible so tend to put the liquid wherever the hose points.

Here's how I siphon my chemicals...

I made a stainless wire clip (welding rod) to hold a supple latex (surgical rubber) tube into the corner of the tray. On the other end of the rubber tube is an 8" long metal tube (a piece of 3/8" plated tubing salvaged from a faucet/toilet supply kit), and a rubber collar.

The latex tube is long enough to form a loop below the edge of the sink which collects enough sucked up liquid to re-establish the siphon action after I take my mouth off of the metal end. (There's no need to suck the liquid up to your mouth.)

The metal end is heavy enough to prevent the tubing from flopping around while I attend to other things. The rubber collar prevents the metal tube from dropping all the way down into the bottle which is set on the floor.

The 3/8" ID tube delivers a gallon of liquid in about 20 seconds (depending on how much "head" the liquid has). Clean-up is fast and simple, compared to fussing with a bulb or other paraphernalia.

I tried to attach some photo's of my siphon system. Let's try again...

A pox on it...
If I have to experiment software sequencing every time I want to post a photo, I won't bother...

One method we used to use in the lab (soils analysis) was to take a plastic 25 cc syringe body and plunger, and fit that to the end of some PVC tubing of about 5mm I.D.

To start the siphon, we just pulled the plunger right out of the syringe body. The volume of the syringe was enough to fill the tubing and start the siphon. It wouldn't work with a small bottle, but it does avoid the risk of ingestion.