My tank number 12 - the sandy bottomed one - has now been set up for a full four days, so I guess that it was time to do a bit of a water change. 10% to 20% is my normal, as this represents about 6 watering can's worth.

Today, however, I found an easy way of  doing a much more thorough water change than this, and you hardly notice that it has been done. I will now let you into the secret.

1) Buy yourself a dodgy second hand Fluval 104 with tubing that 'nearly fits' (do not use a brand new filter, or this procedure won't work).

2) Set up the filter into a  48" x 12" x 18" tank with a hood that is designed only to be used with internal filters. If this is not possible, ensure that the hood does not fit squarely on the glass of the tank, but rests most of its weight on the badly-connected tubing.

3) Ignore repeatedly the fact that the filter 'gurgles' from time to time as it sucks in air through the dodgy connections or, if you can't ignore it, do a temporary fix with a piece of gaffa tape over the join.

4) Go to work.

5) Return back from work, look at the tank, utter a series of expletives that should not be spelt out on a family blog like this. Pick up broken filter hose from the floor. (It is more effective to wait until it has nearly emptied the tank and the fish are all swimming in 3" depth of water).

6) Turn off the now burnt-out heater, filter (now an air filter), pumps etc.

7) Mop up the 120 litres of tank water freshly desposited onto the carpets on the garage floor by hauling them out of the back door, sodden, onto the lawn.

8) Cut around the pieces of carpet that you can't remove, due to the weight of tanks standing on them, with a blunt Stanley knife. Throw these outside to join the others. It needs to be pointed out here that a fun variation is to ensure that the wet carpet liberally distributes its watery contents all over your clothing - but this is optional.

9) Throw down about 3 months worth of newspapers onto the garage floor in an effort to soak up some of the remaining Tsunami.

10) Boil several kettles of water and fill tank with new replacement water at the right temperature before you even have a chance to think about it.

11) Use the correct tubing that you have had hidden away in your garden shed, but couldn't be bothered to find it and refit filter (now a water filter again).

12) Throw away the burnt-out heater and search cupboards for a suitable working replacement.

13) Fit replacement and turn it on before the water goes cold.

14) Turn on pumps, lights etc.

15) Throw away soggy newspaper, open all possible doors and windows so as to dry out the bare garage floor.

16) Sit back and relax, congratulating yourself on a job well done.

I tried this out today and I must say that it is much more fun than the old 'siphon-out-into-a-bucket-and-replace-a-small-quantity-at-a-time' approach.

This having been said, I don't think that I will be trying it again.

The producer would like to assure readers that no fish were harmed during the making of this article.