Cleaning gravel help

[DaruniaJones88]

So gravel cleaning....bought a gravel vac. It's on its way (I live in the middle of nowheresville). So I have a question/concern.

Are these gravel vacuums just super weak that they only suck up biowaste (poo, food remnants, etc) (and obviously water)? Or does the gravel go through as well and you just put it back in after it's clean?

Or is "vacuum" misleading in this case and it's just a pump?

Do I vacuum the gravel like you would carpet? Or stir up the gravel so all the biowaste starts floating and you suck THAT up or? Total fish noob here. Altho the fish I got are still alive so far. But then again they are local fish (and perfectly legal. I made sure I didn't get any fish that is "illegal" to own) so they are tougher than any farmed fish.

 

[ColdKoi]

There’s many methods and theory’s behind gravel vacing, and a lot of it has to do with the type of substrate and if the tank is planted or not

Most gravel vacs or any that I’ve seen are not powerful enough to suck the gravel right up into the hose, I’ve heard they suck up sand but I’ve never had sand to try it on. Their main purpose is to lightly lift the gravel and ‘stir it up’ so it can suck up all the waste lodged in there and they all seem to do that fairly well

With a planted tank I only use the vac to suck up any heavier deposits on the substrate, especially those that are not near a plant. You typically don’t want to do any deep gravel vac near plants as you’re removing the potential nutrients (poop) that the plant could use.

In the case of a non planted tank, you can go to town on it and deep vac if you wish but it’s typically recommended if you choose this method, only do a max 1/3 of the substrate in one cleaning. If you go and deep vac the entire tank you disturb a lot of beneficial bacteria as well as potentially stir up a lot of nastiness that was buried

 

[ADsnail]

It will pull up water and a bit of substrate but both fall back in as you lift the vac out. Gently jam it against and slightly into the gravel or sand again, lift out, water and substrate fall back in, repeat.

Two things to pay attention to:

Your hand holding the vac so you aren't waving it around splashing water all over when you raise it. One tends to focus on looking into the tank to see where to go next; meanwhile the vac-holding hand is out there dripping it all around.

And the bucket that it drains into. They come with a clamp that holds the drain hose to your bucket but I've never seen one that really holds, so I add a strong hardware store clamp to make sure that thing is staying put and the dirty water is going into the bottom of the bucket. I also place the dirty water bucket on a chair instead of the floor so the hose has less distance and doesn't start moving around. This will make more sense once you use it. The reason for all this will be clear once you smell and see what comes out.

You'll know you're pulling the goop out when you begin to smell something horrible - the more often you vac, the less strong it will be, but there's no denying what it is that you're removing. Follow the instructions that come with it for cleaning the unit itself. And be amazed at how gross it is