Carpet Plants - How To Clean Gravel?

[adrianborg]

Morning all. I'm thinking of adding carpeting plants to part of my tank - like hairgrass or a moss. But how do you clean the gravel once it's covered? Presumably the normal syphoning would damage the plants?

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Well tbh, if they work you'll need good flow, if you have good flow you shouldn't need to vacume the gravel, I use HC and when sone lifted I found it to be the cleanest substrate in my whole tank. If you use moss on slate then you could take the slate out, rinse then put it back in.

 

[adrianborg]

Thanks ps3steveo, but what do you mean by good flow? I have a Fluval 240 pump in a 240l tank which generates a good flow of water. But when I vacuum the gravel every week you can see the detritus in the water that comes out - I guess a mix of fish poo, plant debris and even bits of sinking food for the BNs that I enevitably miss when I'm fishing them back out (they break up, or get pushed about by the fish and go missing). And my tank is probably only stocked to about half its capacity...

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Is that the standard internal filter? If so we recommend in planted tanks to have 10x turnover so you'd need a pump rated at 2400 litres per hour really or get youself a koralia it will help circulation, you need water movement basically. Then most of the dirt will end up in your filter where as at the moment most is sinking and not making it to your filter inlet.

 

[adrianborg]

Is that the standard internal filter? If so we recommend in planted tanks to have 10x turnover so you'd need a pump rated at 2400 litres per hour really or get youself a koralia it will help circulation, you need water movement basically. Then most of the dirt will end up in your filter where as at the moment most is sinking and not making it to your filter inlet.

It's an external filter (fluval 305, not 240 that I said earlier) - output is 1000 litres/hr, so based on your note I would need to add a koralia rather than upgrade the filter, right? Any recommendations as to an appropriate model for that size tank? I also need to get the balance right between the needs of the harlequins (which I believe don't like a strong flow) and the bristlenoses (which I believe do).

 

[Ps3Steveo]

I'd have a look at the rating on the diffrent koralias, harlequins don't mind flow as they'll shoal nicely in it, just get one rated about 1000lph and that should be plenty of flow, then if youbhave your filter outlet above the inlet, put the koralia at the opposite end aiming across the bottom of the tank and it will add to your current flow then any ribbish on the substrate should be pushed towards your filter inlet better.

 

[adrianborg]

I'd have a look at the rating on the diffrent koralias, harlequins don't mind flow as they'll shoal nicely in it, just get one rated about 1000lph and that should be plenty of flow, then if youbhave your filter outlet above the inlet, put the koralia at the opposite end aiming across the bottom of the tank and it will add to your current flow then any ribbish on the substrate should be pushed towards your filter inlet better.

Thanks a lot for your help!

 

[Ps3Steveo]

No worries