Do not fight your tank, ok?
I did fight my tank for a long time and today it is my room TV hahahha I dont need to do a lot of water changes, clean the gravel of anything.
Try to bring harmony to your tank...
Imagina that, u have a 10g tank, not to big..so u want bottom feeders, crustaceans (to clean up poop and other stuff), snails for cleaning the glass and pretty much everything and some type of schooling fish to give it character and to check water quality (neon tetras are awesome water checkers - try to search on Google) and thats it, u have a whooooole big cleaning crew in your little paradise