How to clean gravel in planted tank?

A

alphahydrox

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Aug 23, 2007
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I have several plants in my tank and it's a little hard to vacuum the gravel because I don't want to ruin the tank (decorations, etc)

Any advice, tips, ideas?
 
Vacuum around the plants and take out the decorations every other time.

That is what I do.

Besides plants like the icky detritus on their roots.
 
i was going to make a separate post out of this but it seems to relate to your topic very well. I have a friend who used to stick a nozzle from a bottle of compressed air into the gravel and give it a quick blast. He had the suction going - this was pre python days - and would suck out all the yuckie stuff because the compressed air would force the lighter stuff out from between the gravel...I thought this was a lot of trouble to go to but he said he did it because it actually disturbed the gravel less than normal vacuuming. The way he did it, he was right.
 
I found there are two big problems with vacuuming planted tanks, especially the heavily planted ones. First was too strong of a syphon just sucked a lot of plants right out of the substrate. Second, in order to move slowly and carefully enough meant I could drain a tank before I could do a proper job.

My solution was to buy a HOT Magnum filter and the vacuum adapter for it. The filter is loaded with the micron cart and the blue sponge sleeve that goes around it. The suction is perfect and I can vacuum as long and slowly as needed without removing a single drop from the tank.

You can vac the debris out of delicate ground cover or deep vac the gravel down to the bottom glass without any problems. Despite having 15+ tanks up and running over the years, I have never owned a python :-)

There is a bonus to this method as the filter also doubles as a spot water polisher. Nothing beats the micron cart for clearing cloudy water cept for DE filters. And you can add DE to a magnum to make it filter even finer when clearing up green water or a bacterial bloom.
 
TwoTankAmin said:
I found there are two big problems with vacuuming planted tanks, especially the heavily planted ones. First was too strong of a syphon just sucked a lot of plants right out of the substrate. Second, in order to move slowly and carefully enough meant I could drain a tank before I could do a proper job.

My solution was to buy a HOT Magnum filter and the vacuum adapter for it. The filter is loaded with the micron cart and the blue sponge sleeve that goes around it. The suction is perfect and I can vacuum as long and slowly as needed without removing a single drop from the tank.

You can vac the debris out of delicate ground cover or deep vac the gravel down to the bottom glass without any problems. Despite having 15+ tanks up and running over the years, I have never owned a python :-)

There is a bonus to this method as the filter also doubles as a spot water polisher. Nothing beats the micron cart for clearing cloudy water cept for DE filters. And you can add DE to a magnum to make it filter even finer when clearing up green water or a bacterial bloom.
Click to expand...
I thought about getting one of those just for this reason..
I just missed the deal I saw on craigslist for a mag filter..:duh:
 
Why do you need to vacuum the tank? Cant you get some kind of invert or fish or something to eat the poo thats on the bottom?
 
I use a smaller gravel vac with smaller tubing around plants. It doesn't suck very hard & the flow is pretty slow. It's also good for deep vac in pool sand.
 
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