Plant leaves are yellowing

[molliwopp]

Aqua clear HOBs are good. Eheim or fluval for canisters.

 

[MyanRan]

Yeah, you could get an AquaClear HOB. They are cheap and very effective. Fluval also sells a HOB C-Series Filter. It is similar, but a little more expensive, probably better quality too.

 

[Scottyhorse]

I'll probably get an AC HOB....

 

[blizowman1]

A good place to get aquaclear filters for cheaper than going to petsmart is petmountain.com and you can go to Walmart like I did and buy a siphon vac for like 9 bucks

 

[Scottyhorse]

Well we are going to Walmart tomorrow, so I'll look around for a siphon and cotton batting, correct?

 

[Rivercats]

Well we are going to Walmart tomorrow, so I'll look around for a siphon and cotton batting, correct?

No you want 100% polyester fiber fill.

 

[Scottyhorse]

No you want 100% polyester fiber fill.

Well I got a gravel vac. I wish I read that Janis, I couldn't find any cotton batting, just polyester and I didn't know if that was safe or not.... LOL
So I've got a question about the siphon. There is a bunch of debris in the gravel, should I run my fingers through it before I use the siphon? I also rinsed my filter cartridge in tank water a couple days ago, the bowl was nasty!!!

 

[Rivercats]

I'd stir it up good without messing up the plants right before you start syphoning. It's going to take a few WC's to really get the tank cleaned up so don't freak if it doesn't look the greatest for the first 2 or 3 WC's depending on how much buildup gunk is in the tank. You might also need to rinse your filter pad more often during this process. Something else you can do is every couple of days wave your hand around in the tank to stir up detris so the filter can keep pulling some out even when your not doing a WC.

 

[Scottyhorse]

Well I changed about half of the water with the siphon, and I used the gravel vac part in the areas where there are no plants. Well, the water that was in the buckets was nasty!!
The gravel already looks a lot better. I'm going to test the nitrate level here in a little bit, I wanted to give the tank some time to settle.

 

[Rivercats]

You might want to check ammonia and nitrite also just to be sure this doesn't cause a slight spike.

 

[Scottyhorse]

Good idea.