Gravel vac for small tank

[guppi]

We are very very new and clueless. Please be kind as I am admitting up front that we are making mistakes by the dozen, I'm sure, but would like to change that. Our son received a very small tank (10 gallons) as a gift so we've been thrown into this a bit. There are 3 neon tetras and 2 guppies (yellow with orange tails--not sure what the name is?) plus 2 african dwarf frogs.

I'm confused about cleaning and water changes. We have this yucky brown film that has slowly built up on the various plants inside, plus on the glass, etc. It comes off easily with wiping/rinsing...but I don't think we are supposed to be fully taking everything out of the aquarium and cleaning it and putting it back together each month, right? My husband has done that twice and I really need some concrete info to show him about what we should be doing to clean the tank--that's how I ended up here.

I've been doing 20-25% water changes each week and a filter change once a month. But the water is always pretty yucky looking and the brown filmy stuff comes back.

We got a gravel vac from a pet store, but it was really tough to work and didn't seem to clean well. This is one of the times when my husband said that he gives up and just want to take everyone and everything out and clean it.

Can someone recommend a good gravel vac, and give me some details on how the process should work? Ie, how often, how do you vacuum the gravel with the fish still in the tank, are you supposed to be taking all plants/decorations out for cleaning each week before vacuuming or no?

 

[sinibotia]

Hello, and welcome!

By any chance do you have a set of test kits for your water quality? If you don't, I highly recommend purchasing an API freshwater master test kit. It's one of the most important tools in the entire aquarium hobby, and the information it gives will help us help you much better.

I highly suspect the brown film in question is a form of algae. Algae is caused by an excess of light or nutrients in the tank. Nutrients come in the form of fish waste and are dissolved in the water, while light is, well light.

In order to solve this problem, try uping your water changes to around 50% per week. Don't completely clean everything- all of the surfaces in the tank hold very helpful beneficial bacteria. Are you familiar with the nitrogen cycle and how it works in aquariums? Bacteria convert highly toxic fish waste in the form of ammonia into mostly non-toxic nitrate. Those bacteria grow on all surfaces- in the gravel and on the filter in particular, so you really don't want to be changing your filter pads or cleaning your gravel too heavily. Just rinse old filter pads in a bucket of tank water and then place them back in the filter!

As for gravel vacuuming, focus on just 1/4 of the aquarium gravel for every water change. Try to be thorough in that section but don't worry about getting too much stuff out. Really you want to focus more on keeping your nitrates below 20ppm as the more nitrates there are, the more algae can grow.

You are correct in that the tank shouldn't be completely taken apart and cleaned- this wipes out the beneficial bacteria and does a LOT more harm than good. In fact this is something you generally never want to do!

 

[FWFishTanks]

Hello, and welcome!

By any chance do you have a set of test kits for your water quality? If you don't, I highly recommend purchasing an API freshwater master test kit. It's one of the most important tools in the entire aquarium hobby, and the information it gives will help us help you much better.

I highly suspect the brown film in question is a form of algae. Algae is caused by an excess of light or nutrients in the tank. Nutrients come in the form of fish waste and are dissolved in the water, while light is, well light.

In order to solve this problem, try uping your water changes to around 50% per week. Don't completely clean everything- all of the surfaces in the tank hold very helpful beneficial bacteria. Are you familiar with the nitrogen cycle and how it works in aquariums? Bacteria convert highly toxic fish waste in the form of ammonia into mostly non-toxic nitrate. Those bacteria grow on all surfaces- in the gravel and on the filter in particular, so you really don't want to be changing your filter pads or cleaning your gravel too heavily. Just rinse old filter pads in a bucket of tank water and then place them back in the filter!

As for gravel vacuuming, focus on just 1/4 of the aquarium gravel for every water change. Try to be thorough in that section but don't worry about getting too much stuff out. Really you want to focus more on keeping your nitrates below 20ppm as the more nitrates there are, the more algae can grow.

You are correct in that the tank shouldn't be completely taken apart and cleaned- this wipes out the beneficial bacteria and does a LOT more harm than good. In fact this is something you generally never want to do!

+1

I recommend hand pump gravel vacs, such as this one:

Top Fin® Aquarium Gravel Vacuum | Vacuums | PetSmart

 

[Mebbid]

1 - Gravel vaccing isnt terribly important. In fact, in planted tanks they are never even done.
2 - You are going to need a test kit. I would suggest an api master kit
3 - Stop chaning out the filter cartridge. This is what holds the majority of your bacteria and throwing that away is detrimental.
4 - Dont do a complete clean either, thats killing a lot of bacteria thats a good thing
5 - The algae is diatoms which are common in new setups. They go away over time.


Regular tank maintenance is a weekly water change, rinsing the filter cartridge in used tank water monthly, and testing the water regularly.

In fresh water tanks we are really worrying about our bacterial colonies in the tanks. These different types of bacteria grows on everything in the tank (although mostly on the filter) This bacteria serves to convert the toxic ammonia excreted by your fish into nitrite and then converts that into a less toxic form of nitrogen Nitrates. Th enitrates are removed with water changes.

Changing out the filter and cleaning everything thoroughly serves to kill all this bacteria allowing those poisonous compounds to build up in the tank.

 

[FWFishTanks]

1 - Gravel vaccing isnt terribly important. In fact, in planted tanks they are never even done.
2 - You are going to need a test kit. I would suggest an api master kit
3 - Stop chaning out the filter cartridge. This is what holds the majority of your bacteria and throwing that away is detrimental.
4 - Dont do a complete clean either, thats killing a lot of bacteria thats a good thing
5 - The algae is diatoms which are common in new setups. They go away over time.


Regular tank maintenance is a weekly water change, rinsing the filter cartridge in used tank water monthly, and testing the water regularly.

In fresh water tanks we are really worrying about our bacterial colonies in the tanks. These different types of bacteria grows on everything in the tank (although mostly on the filter) This bacteria serves to convert the toxic ammonia excreted by your fish into nitrite and then converts that into a less toxic form of nitrogen Nitrates. Th enitrates are removed with water changes.

Changing out the filter and cleaning everything thoroughly serves to kill all this bacteria allowing those poisonous compounds to build up in the tank.

All true