Poop help

[xfactor6699]

Ive got a lot of fake plants in my aquarium it is hard to do gravel clean is there anything else out there that will help

 

[darby]

All I have are fake plants, too. I just rearrange everything when I do a gravel vac. It doesn't bother me personally. I don't know of anything that would help against that.

 

[doogle]

adding a fish like a pleco will add more poop. just gotta get dirty and get in there and mix it up and syphion it out. maybe need to grab a handfull of gravel and clean it if it has ugly algae all over it

 

[darby]

All I can think of is to take care when doing a vac, but eventually, you are going to have to "uproot" your fake plants.

 

[Josh]

As long as your tank is completely cycled just pull out the plants and rinse them off. That's the advantage of plastic plants. I don't try to vacuum with all my plants/ornaments in there. Don't want to accidentally hit a fish that may have been hiding, plus it gives you a chance to rinse everything. '

I however would avoid doing this if you don't have a well established tank as a lot of the beneficial bacteria is located in the substrate and on the surface of your decorations. Cleaning them during a cycle could reset it.

 

[doogle]

fish like redecorating, it gets them breeding and less territorial, and the rise and fall of water during changes and or night lights can get more activity in your fish too...

 

[Amicus]

I don't vac the entire tank at once and you can do the same as long as the Nitrates are in check. My master kit has Nitrates in ppms, I test every week and they are consistently from 0 to 5. That is acceptable as long as the readings don't go to the end of the spectrucm. Once they start to rise I will vac half of the tank one weekend and the other half the next weekend. This will cut the workload down for you and will not obliterate your bennificial substrate bacteria, but this bacteria does recolonize quickly.

 

[jasurf21]

Nerite Snails

 

[severum mama]

Nerite Snails

... are great algae eaters but do not allow you to cut down on maintenance in any way. Everything excretes waste and it's important to vac the gravel.

 

[doogle]

yes,try vacc'ing half at a time if you like...