It was about a year ago while touring White Corals in Germany that we got our first look at an invention that seems like a good idea in theory, but would be questionable in real life. The Karcher Power Squeegee is exactly what it sounds like, a miniature shop-vac connected to a squeegee that sucks up all the water wiped away from a glass surface.
Fast forward to present day and with all the tanks at the Reef Builders Studio we find ourselves with 70 linear feet of glass to keep clean. We’ve used plenty of analog and manual squeegees before but you still find yourself wiping off all the water that drips down, and pushing all the water to one side is just not nearly as clean as what the Karcher can do.
To be perfectly honest, we saw the Karcher power squeegee in action and it was pretty cool then, but maybe I’d forgotten how immaculately effective it actually is. In practice here at the studio we managed to wipe down over 100 square feet of glass in under ten minutes and there was not a single spot and virtually no streaking anywhere – and trust us, when you’ve got Red Sea & Waterbox peninsula style tanks and ultra clear glass, every little blemish shows!
We picked up the Karcher WV1 Plus Surface Cleaner from amazon for under $50 and it came with a handy combination spray bottle and mini mop. The spray and mop help to evenly spread out and dilute any salt spots from the surface of our reef tanks but it’s when you fire up the not-too-loud vacuum on the Karcher squeegee that the magic happens. If you’ve got a big tank or even more than one tank and you like to be able to actually see inside, you really owe it to yourself to try one of these out, you’ll never reach for paper towels again.
