Hi Gemma!

With the airline I do a two handed approach when the tads are really little. I use one hand to hold and guide the airline tubing along the bottom of the tank and the other hand to "shoo" away the tads. I have the airline empty out into a bucket and this is where the turkey baster really comes in handy - - any tads who end up going for a ride are easy to suck up from the bucket and put back into the tank. I never removed the tads during water changes. If they are hovering in one spot that I really want to siphon I tap gently a few times in the area and they swim to the opposite side of the tank.

If your air pump is too powerful then put a knot in the airline. You can loosen/tighten it as needed until you have a flow you are comfortable with. You can also disperse the flow a bit by putting on a spliter as if you were going to attach multiple airlines, they can either be used to run multiple tanks at once or simply left open to release some of the air pressure.