Stir the gravel

[chenyi]

When I'm cleaning my tank, it stirs up a lot of garbage and makes the water cloudy for awhile. I was wondering if maybe I should do that intentionally between water changes to give the filter a chance to capture it and get that garbage out of there. Or is that just choking my fish with a bunch of garbage?

 

[rlederer]

Not quite sure what you are doing when you stir up the tank while cleaning. Some stirring up in unavoidable. But if you vacuum the gravel as you drain water, you can get a lot of detritus out. Stirring up the water in the hopes that the filter will pick some of the stuff up isn't very effective because most of what you stir up will just settle to the bottom.

 

[BBradbury]

Hello chen...

That organic material that collects on the bottom of the tank is always dissolving in the tank water. So, by simply removing the water, you remove this build up. If you have a planted tank, then this material dissolves and feeds your plants. If you change out at least half the water weekly, you'll have no tank problems.

B

 

[V227]

^^^^^ +1 ^^^^^

For years I used to thoroughly gravel vac the substrate with every WC believing that it was benificial to the fish. What I actually was doing was destroying the benificial bacteria bed present in the substrate. Now, no gravel vacs, clearer water, healthier tank.

 

[King Fisher]

^^^^^ +1 ^^^^^

For years I used to thoroughly gravel vac the substrate with every WC believing that it was benificial to the fish. What I actually was doing was destroying the benificial bacteria bed present in the substrate. Now, no gravel vacs, clearer water, healthier tank.

This is interesting to me because I read an article awhile back where beneficial bacteria was studied in rivers and lakes and in this lengthy article, they noted that BB forms a protective coat over itself to further protect it and help it attach itself to nearly every object underwater. They stated that you could remove, say, an underwater plant and scrub it with your fingers in the water and it wouldn't remove the BB. They were surprised by how tough BB was to manually remove. They decided to really test the resilience of BB so they removed substrate from a lake (sand, small gravel and stones). They hit the substrate with a power sprayer, looked at it under a microscope and found that BB was still attached and living.

After reading that I had a hard time believing my Python vac was removing BB from my gravel. But then again, people are getting mini cycles from deep gravel vac cleanings...........

 

[chenyi]

.......

 

[chenyi]

So do you do a gravel vac on every 3rd water change or something? Or you basically never vac the gravel?

 

[V227]

I follow the advice provided above by BBradbury. No gravel vacs, only one big 50% WC a week. My tanks stay remarkably clean, clear & healthy. Of course careful feeding is a must.

 

[chenyi]

Wow. I thought vacuuming the gravel was Step 1. Of course, the guy who showed me how to vacuum gravel was the same guy that sold me two goldfish for my 10 gallon tank. Yeah. They didn't last long. Now I have 3 brilliant rasboras, a cory catfish, and a swordtail. No plants yet. I want plants. But I want to upgrade the tank and get better light in there first. I'm gonna try it with just doing the water changes. Makes my life easier.

 

[SidFishous]

I saw somewhere else on this forum that vigorously vacuuming the gravel at every weekly water change could also be responsible for that yucky brown algae, which I assume is what those brown spots are that suddenly appeared all over my fake plant leaves, and is nearly impossible to scrape off. Does that sound right? My tank is in its first month of operation with fish in it, so I'm just learning! Thoughts?

 

[V227]

The brown algae bloom you're experiencing is "Diatom". It's always present in small populations, but seems to flourish in new setups, probably due to unstable water chemistry.
Eventually green algae should overtake the Diatom.