gravel cleaning

[frankycee]

I used a gravel cleaner to do a 10% water change (weekly) and gravel cleaning at same time in my 20G tank.

The trouble is that it emptied so fast that i barely had time to clean the gravel.

Could I connect my gravel cleaner hose to my filter intake (aquaclear 150) and use my ''flexible filter intake extension '' to do more gravel cleaning.

I know i wouldnt be removing the fish poo and uneaten food from the tank, just moving it to the filter, but at least i could rinse out the filter foam...

Yes or No

 

[Toadfish]

I thnk a better solution would either be a narrower hose on the syphon which will make it go slower and/or do a larger water change (20-25%).

 

[gadazobe]

I don't think that it's a good idea. Doing a thorough gravel clean and filter clean together could destroy too much good bacteria. Why don't you get a smaller gravel vac?

 

[frankycee]

Smaller gravel cleaner...huh...never thought of that...then again i'm kinda new (very new) at this.

I bought a medium gravel cleaner, on the package it said 20G and up, maybe i'll get a smaller one.

Do you have to ''hover'' the gravel cleaner above/very close to gravel, or dig it in to get the gravel swirling inside the tube?

Is about 3/4 inch gravel too much, i see 1/4 inch gravel in alot of web sites, but that seems toothin for me?

 

[gadazobe]

You can do a thorough gravel clean every 4 weeks but not all of it at the same time. If you start with 1/4 of the gravel one week, then a different 1/4 the following week and so on. That way all the gravel will be cleaned thoroughly within 4 weeks. On the times that you do a thorough 1/4, gently hover over the rest to get most of the crap. 3/4" is fine unless you want live plants, which need something deeper to hold the roots.

 

[Dubby]

Do you have to ''hover'' the gravel cleaner above/very close to gravel, or dig it in to get the gravel swirling inside the tube?

To do a thorough cleaning would mean you need to dig in the cleaner into the gravel....

 

[leafs]

When I do my gravel cleaning I do the whole bottom at once. Cleaning the gravel won't harm the bacteria that's attached to it. I've never had a problem doing it this way. You should dig in deep with the gravel cleaner tube to get all the gunk out. If you have plants, then just hover over those areas, but don't dig in.

 

[jimbooo]

i had the same problem the first gravel vac i bought emptied a 10G in about 1 minute. apart from scaring the hell out of my fish i couldn't "hoover" fast enough.

i now use a 10G vac on all my tanks (including the 40G) it takes longer but you have time to hoover the whole tank and only remove the bits you want to rather than the huge tornado effect i had at first.