Substrate & Cleaning Issue

NuBFishMomma · Jul 27, 2006

I have an issue with my gravel and cleaning it. I have a 90 US gal monster. I have about 3/4" of gravel and a big gravel vacuum for cleanings. No UGF. Problem is - by the time I get half of the tank bottom vacuumed, I've siphoned my 20-30% water out of it, and I have to stop. The next week, I vacuum the other half of the tank, but the remaining half of the gravel is visibly dirty and gross already.

I'm considering removing some of the gravel and not feeding my fish as much to reduce the amout of waste in the tank. I've been stirring the gravel every day or every other day to try to kick some of the poo into the HOTB filters. It isn't working. Also should mention a bit of the dirty look is algae, which is covering the Val in my tank, even. Do you clean live plants for this?

What should I do to get this tank sparkling clean every time and not take out too much water?

BigIan · Jul 27, 2006

if you have alge on your valis you probably have your lights on for to long try cutting your "photo period" down.

and a smaller gravel vac with a narrower hose will allowyou to siphon mor tank bottom as the narrower hose dosent move the watter as fast.

i would cut down on the feeding as it shouldn`t be getting that dirty that fast,

and 20-30% water changes is what i do on my big tank, the smaller ones get a 50% change

NuBFishMomma · Jul 27, 2006

BigIan said:
if you have alge on your valis you probably have your lights on for to long try cutting your "photo period" down.

I've already started shutting off the lights for a couple hours during the day. We were going from 9 am to 10 pm or so - probably much too long. I shut them off altogether for a couple days. Don't know how much I really need the lights at all because the plants are close to a window anyway, but it makes the tank prettier.

BigIan said:
and a smaller gravel vac with a narrower hose will allowyou to siphon mor tank bottom as the narrower hose dosent move the watter as fast.

Wow! I never would have thought of that! I figured big tank, big vac. I'll have to try that one. I'll trust you since your tank's surface area is bigger than mine, even. (48" x 18" x 24")

BigIan said:
i would cut down on the feeding as it shouldn`t be getting that dirty that fast,
and 20-30% water changes is what i do on my big tank, the smaller ones get a 50% change

I'd pretty much figured this out. I've been following the instructions on the food container and the five-minute rule. I was feeding twice per day, cut back to every morning, but could cut back to every other day as long as the fishies are looking good. I'll experiment with it over the next few weeks to see what works. And probably still remove some of the gravel to make it easier to get all the waste out of it.

Thanks for the help!

TwoTankAmin · Jul 27, 2006

I have 16 tanks. All are planted and most have gravel. I do not ouwn a python and have only some small gravity syphons used for small tanks. So how do I vacuum most of my tanks?

I have a Hot Magnum with the vacuum attachment. I use the micron cart with a blue sleeve over it. I can vac any tank as slowly and carefully as I need to without removing a single drop of water from the tank. It also doesn't suck up the gravel or the plants which often need cleaning more than the gravel. When I have finished vacuuming, I just put the intake back on the filter and let it polish the water for a while.

Water changes are handled seperately from vacs.