Help

[bassboy]

hi all i clean my tank once a week & change a bucket of water once week i ve got a 4ft tank with a large filter i ve only had the tank for about a mounth and now my (white) gravel is stinking dirty i brougth a gravel cleaner
but it doesn't seem to do anything so with my hand i just kind of shifted the gravel around and it was bogging undernaeth it

has anyone got any ideas on what i could do becouse i don't want to have to completly change all the water and wash all the gravel every mounth becoues that would be 2 much hasel becouse i have quite alot of fish

would a under gravel filter stop this from happening

any suggestions would be very grateful

thank u all

 

[scubadoo]

Maybe not the most helpful, but consider changing to sand.

looks better IMO and is easier to keep clean.

 

[MHunt]

An under gravel filter wouldn't help much as it would draw more dirt into the substrate. You may find that after a while the top level of the substrate will clear as bacteria builds up that breaks down the detrius you're seeing.

In the meantime, just keep using a gravel vac to get rid of what's there. You could add a cleanup crew in the form of some shrimps, snails will help also, but you may find them becoming more of a problem than the dirt itself whan they start to multiply.

 

[nmonks]

Clean-up crew solutions don't actually work. Adding snails or catfish to "clean" an aquarium is a contradiction, since any additional animals only produce more faeces, adding to the problem.

You need to narrow down what the problems with solid wastes in the aquarium are. There are basically three sources:

1. Fish faeces.
2. Decaying plants.
3. Uneaten food

Likely all three will be an issue. If it's fish faeces collecting at the bottom of the tank, it may be overstocked, but more likely, there isn't enough water current to draw the faeces into the filter. Adding an extra filter will help. Arrange the water current so that there is movement at the bottom of the tank, not just at the top. It's good to have at least one filter at each end of the tank.

Decaying plant matter can usually be removed easily by acting pre-emptively: take out leaves when they start dying, rather than waiting for them to fall off the plant. If your plants are constantly dying, then look to what the problem is and fix it. Not enough light, perhaps, or the wrong water chemistry for the plants in question.

Uneaten food is a sign of overfeeding. Feed fish only as much as they eat at once. There shouldn't ever be flake on the gravel or uneaten bloodworms. If there is, siphon them out, and don't feed so much next time.

General advice: if you don't have an undergravel filter and your don't have rooted plants then use the MINIMUM depth of gravel possible. As others have mentioned, sand is especially easy to clean because stuff can't sink into it. As an estimate, a 1 cm depth of gravel is absolutely fine for a tank without plants or an undergravel filter. With sand, even less will work well.

At each water change, stir the gravel with a stick. This will pull the crud up into the water, and make it easier for you to siphon out.

Cheers,

Neale