I'm having some difficulty each week getting my gravel vacuumed well. I have an Aqueon siphon I use now but I don't remember what size it is. The opening is about 1.5". Whenever I try to vacuum deep I seem to disturb and uproot plants and I have a hard time getting around rocks, driftwood and other decorations. Are more experienced fish keepers taking everything out of their tank every single week and vacuuming all around? Also, I'm taking my filters apart and rinsing things off every week. I have prefilter sponges on the intakes of my HOB filters and when I squeeze them repeatedly in the removed tank water the water turns very very dark brown fast. They get extremely dirty. What prompted these questions is the overnight appearance of what I think might be spots of BBA, right after a 50% WC. After some reading, high organics seems a common thought cause. And that makes sense in my tank given my gravel cleaning challenges and really dirty pre-filters in just one week. Also the fact that I had a huge brown algae outbreak and fertilizer deficiencies that had stopped plant growth and now I'm battling trying to clean up alot of dead dwarf sag. leaves. I try to pick out the dying leaves every other day but it seems there is always more but I do think I'm finally getting ahead of it with better fertilizer dosing. Also, I'm assuming as I get ahead of the brown algae it dies off and also increases the organics?
So what would you recommend for maybe a smaller gravel vacuum? Or do you recommend something else? What do people with no gravel showing with lots of plants do to get their gravel clean? Any help or suggestions you might have would be much appreciated! Thanks!
So what would you recommend for maybe a smaller gravel vacuum? Or do you recommend something else? What do people with no gravel showing with lots of plants do to get their gravel clean? Any help or suggestions you might have would be much appreciated! Thanks!