no im not alergic to bee stings, not allergic to anything really... as for siphoning your tank I dip a siphon into the tank and fill the large chamber while the tube is in the overflow bucket, I then lift the end of the large chamber out of the water and above the tank untill the water starts going down and comming out the overflow tube, when that happens I put the large chamber back in the tank open end up and it fills quickly, then you can vacume away like usual and you dont have to risk any bad water in your mouth, when that wont work because of space restrictions you can use a squeze pump with a one way valve that is inline on the overflow tube, I also use an extra inline pump to speed things up....