Heavily Planted Tanks

[This Old Spouse]

I've seen some beautiful heavily planted tanks out there, and I'm just wondering how one cleans them?

 

[L_Plates]

In what way mate ? The substrate, plants, glass ? Or everything.

LP

 

[This Old Spouse]

The whole works. Would I do a regular hoover over the whole thing or would this uproot the plants? I just love the look but am a little afraid of the maintenance.

 

[fluttermoth]

My bedroom tank is quite heavily planted. I just do my best with the gravel cleaner around the plants (you can even 'squish' them down a little bit; they soon bounce back up ) and do under one piece of wood or rock each time (well, if I can be bothered )

Honestly, if there are a lot of plants you don't need to worry too much about the 'mulm' (as long as it doesn't consist of rotting, left over food; that would be a problem); just do the usual water changes, taking the water from around the bottom of the tank and get as much gunk as you can without being over-zealous about it.

I read an article once (fairly sure it was by Mary Bailey) who said that her dwarf cichlid breeding tanks had loads of mulm in and the fish were fine and breed well with just lots and lots of water changes done very quietly from the corners so as not to disturb them.

 

[StandbySetting]

I don't, I get no algae or detritus/mulm, I just do my weekly water change.

 

[L_Plates]

I just gravel around the plants and wood as best i can. Never cleaned the plants yet as there is not really any algae build up anywhere apart from the bigger older leaves but all i do is remove them which frees up space for the new smaller greener leaves to come through.

LP

 

[KittyKat]

I do just a standard water change, that's pretty much it. I do run an old bank card along the glass once per month to get any traces of algae off, but there are usually only one or two tiny spots anyway, in most of my tanks. I embrace mulm, not shun it: it's saved and provided food for many fry in my tanks.