Diiiirty Gravel

[Endgame319]

When I disturbed the gravel by moving my plastic plant, all these tiny particles and old bits of flake food rushed up from the gravel. Is this bad? My tank is still cycling and I dont want to slow down the process by cleaning the gravel. Also, some of the gravel that I dug up had brown stuff on it(algae?). The fish are doing fine and consist of: 4 zebra danios, 2 serpae tetras, and 1 CAE. BTW, the tank is a 25gal.
Water Params: 0 ammonia, .8 nitrites(dangerous i know...), 80 nitrates

 

[Fruitbat]

Well...I think we've discovered your problem. How on earth did you fit an entire CAR into a 25 gallon aquarium?? At the very least I hope it was a compact!!

All kidding aside (I simply couldn't resist)....it sounds like your cycling process is just about completed. It is perfectly normal for decomposing material to settle in the gravel which is why many of us vacuum the gravel regularly to remove the excess. Unless the material on the bottom is becoming particularly unsightly then there is no problem with leaving it there until you're comfortable that the majority of the Nitrogen Cycle process is complete. After that it is a good idea to vacuum that gravel out periodically. The brown stuff that was on your gravel is probably diatoms (if the gravel was at the surface) or may be bacteria. Either way it isn't a problem unless it becomes unsightly.

 

[Allivymar]

I'd gravel vac it Endgame. If you're worried about messing with the good bacteria, do 1/2 the gravel this week and 1/2 next week, but you do need to get that detritus out of there, especially since its not a well planted tank (the plants would use that stuff for food).

 

[shawmutt]

I second the gravel vac. I remember when I was cycling my cichlid tank (after I lost patience with the ammonia method) I let the food lie because I was worried about doing a water change and disturbing the cycle. Well, shortly thereafter my tank was crawling with little white worms and then I got a bad case of cyanobacteria. You can do one of two things to avoid disturbing the cycle:

1. Buy one of those vacuum operated gravel vacs that clean the gravel without a water change, or

2. Siphon the water into a 5 gallon bucket and let the crap settle to the bottom of the bucket (takes about 15 minutes to a few hours, depending on how fine the stuff is). Put the bucket on something higher than the tank--carefully, you don't want to disturb the crap--and siphon the water back in, avoiding the layer of crap on the bottom.

HTH!