cleaning and doing maintenence with fry swimming everywhere

[hsojkrieger]

so i have babies swimming around everywhere. my tank is full of rocks and slabs of slate. i need to pull it out and clean under everything. im worried about the babies being in danger if i pull all of their cover out to clean or risk sucking them up in the vacuum. and tips on how to deal with this?

 

[Iamtechno13]

Are there any other fish in the tank or is it just the fry?

 

[Mebbid]

Why do you think you need to pull everything out? Generally that's completely unnecessary.

To make a completely safe water changing system get some airstones hooked up to airline tubing and then siphon the water through that. Absolutely no chance of harming any of the fry. Or if they are larger rubber band a filter media bag over the top of the gravel vac.

 

[hsojkrieger]

yes its full of larger mbuna, its packed with caves and i normally do half the tank at a time. just seems like a lot of waste builds up under the rocks but havent done it in a while because of the holding females and now there are babies swimming every where on the bottom, just looking for some insight. ive never had babies before i honestly thought they were all male lol

 

[Mebbid]

I would just let it go. I do find that the closer to 0 my nitrates get the less debris builds up. Apparently it breaks down faster when there's less ntirate in the water *shrug*

 

[hsojkrieger]

thanks, yeah im just going to let it go for a while. i just do my weekly changes. the water is crystal clear