Sludge,
Your the inventive man with a plan. Any ideas of how to siphon out shoe boxes with three inches of water using airline tubing. I can not figure out a way to start the siphon without using my mouth. Cleaning the water with a turkey baster is just too labor intensive....appreciate your thoughts...Or anyone's for that matter...
Cheap fountain pump! Or even more reliable a pond pump with hose barbs on the inlet and outlets. You can get these pumps and the hose that fits at Home Depot and many other places.. I use a pond pump as it can handle "chunks" better than a fountain pump can. You can get all sorts of fittings to fit these pumps and adapt them for just about any hose size up to 1.5 inches in diameter. Any thing bigger than that and the static head is to much- gravity will over come the pump. Come to think of it, you are in Black Jungle territory, I bet they have this sort of stuff in house too.
Another option is a gas siphon. These are super cheap and can be purchased at many auto parts stores, or from industrial supply houses. An advantage to these is, there are no nasty ness to harm larvae if you accidentally suck one up.
If you have too much trouble finding stuff like this, pm me. I will hillbilly rig you a hands free system.
A third option is the use of those under-gravel filter kits they make for ten gallon tanks. This will collect the garbage in the throw away filter cartridge, easily handled with gloves.
Heck, while I am brainstorming the subject, you could use a section of small diameter PVC and an air stone too! stick two 90 degree elbows together to form a "U". Stick one of the elbows on the PVC pipe. Drill a hole the same diameter as your air line. Run the airline through the hole and out the pipe. Attach an air stone and then pull it up into the pipe 1/4 of the way. Seal around the hole on the elbow with silicone or wax. This one will be slow and gentle, but should work for vacuuming out your tanks too.