Water Pik is the brand name of an instrument to clean your teeth.   It has a high
pressured water flow through a small opening.  Very good for cleaning small shells.
We can buy them in US in drug stores or discount stores.

Helmut Nisters wrote:

> Dear Scott,
>
> what is a water pik. Can you explain it to me and how does it look. Could you send me
> an jpg image, but small one I didn't find the work pik in the dictionary.
> with best greetings
> Helmut from Innsbruck.
>
> Helmut "Helix" Nisters
> Franz-Fischer-Str. 46
> A-6020 Innsbruck / Austria / Innsbruck
> phone and fax: 0043 / 512 / 57 32 14
> e-mail: [log in to unmask]
> web:    www.netwing.at/nisters/
>            (please visit it and sign guestbook)
> always looking for shellgrit from all over the world
> for my nearly 89 years aged mother Irmgard
> to makes happy and to keep up her health
>
> office:
> Natural History Department of the
> Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum Innsbruck
> Feldstrasse 11 a
> A-6020 Innsbruck / Austria / Europe
> phone: 0043 / 512 / 58 72 86 - 37
> web: www.tiroler-landesmuseum.at
>         (specimen donations to the
>          Tiroler Landesmuseum molluscs collection
>          are always appreciated)
>
> ----------
> There may be some of you out there who have never used a water pik for
> cleaning shells (or cleaning teeth, either). If you have not, and may be
> considering it, let me tell you, this is one powerful little shell cleaner.
> This little tool creates great pressure in little bursts, and is very
> effective in cleaning shells. I clean my shells with it in a 2 1/2 gallon
> white bucket filled with water. Use it under the water, for two reasons: You
> don't blast the shell to who-knows-where, and you don't get soaked from the
> spray either. The white bucket is used so I can easily see when the animal
> gets flushed out. I've used it on larger shells on occasion, when I've put it
> deep inside the aperature and blasted away on a stubborn liver. I think the
> last one I bought cost about 30 bucks, and well worth it.
>
> Scott
> Florida