homemade cylinders and pumps

yesterday i went to petsmart and purchased a small gravel cleaner.

its 1 5/8, when i looked at it it felt like a decent size and my main objective it to pack my cylinder. see i been using a kaplan cylinder for the past year off and on. and i do have a size increase that is permanent from using the kaplan system. but now i want to pack. my kaplan cylinder is 2” by 9inches.

i can pack my kaplan cylinder after about an hour of pumping , but there is just a little part right near the base that doesn’t pack, so i figured if i by getting a smaller tube i can pack easier. and guess what, i couldn’t fit into the tube i got from petsmart. at least not when i was erect, so now i want to try a 1 6/8 tube and see if it will work, but they didn’t have one there. so i am still in search. i need a tube that is about the size of a toilet paper roll or just a little bigger because i can fit into that erect, but just barely

Nine Inches, go back to Pet Smart and exchange for the 2”x10” gravel tube. Make sure the one you get has a 1/16” wall thickness. I’m telling you this because the outside diameter is 2” and the inside diameter is 1 7/8”. This is what I have. You should be able to pack it a bit faster and better than your 2” ID Kaplan tube. This is probably the closest you will get to a 1 3/4” tube without having to pay $90.00 for a specific tube of that size.

What was the final outcome of this? Did you get a larger tube from PetsMart and were you able to use the vacuum pump from the Kaplan system with it? What other modifications did you have to make to the tube to be able to use it?