How To Clean Substrate Without Disturbing Plants?

[silver tipped]

Hi,

Not sure if I'm in the right place but when I do my regular water changes I clean the substrate as well. That works ok for the bits with no plants but i'm worried that the gravel cleaner will up root all my plants. My one thought was take up all the plants just to clean around them but that is a bit drastic. How do you all clean round them without disturbing them too much?

 

[Jen]

You don't really need to vacuum around your plants that much. The plants use the food bits and poop as a fertalizer. Just hover as close to them as you can get with out disturbing them to get any loose debris up.

If it's really dirty, and is causing your water to become unheathly (high ammonia or nitrites) then you should look at pulling some plants up to clean.

 

[silver tipped]

Hi

Many thanks for your reply, it never accurred to me that the plants would find the poop etc beneficial. Its not effecting the water so i'll carry on as I was.

 

[Jen]

it will start to get unsightly eventually. when that happens, just hove over the plants to get what comes up.

 

[George Farmer]

I wave my hand just above the substrate (that is 100% covered by plants), this lifts up any loose detritus that I then siphon.

 

[bennett]

I wave my hand just above the substrate (that is 100% covered by plants), this lifts up any loose detritus that I then siphon.

amusing image george

sorry off subject i know