Cleaning a tank with soil

[Fishface11]

I’ve got quite a few fry in my tank the question is do I need to vac the bottom of the tank with soil and gravel in my planted tank or is it beneficial to leave it

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Do you have the soil underneath the gravel? Or is it mixed in?

 

[P J]

If there is no obvious need just leave it be.

 

[Fishface11]

Do you have the soil underneath the gravel? Or is it mixed in?

Hi I’ve got soil on the bottom and gravel on the top , there’s about 30/40 fry in there with the mum and 3 corys and 1 neon , it’s a 40 litre tank it’s not very big but I thought with all that there’s guna be a lot of poop , is it safe to leave it ?,it’s not going to cause any bacteria problems is it?,or any problems , I don’t know what’s the best thing to do thanks

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

What exactly is your tank set-up? Filter? Aeration? Plants?
Current water parameters?
What fish are the fry and their mum? (Something must be going right for them to breed, unless we're talking livebearers, which seem to breed regardless).
By 'neon', do you mean that you have a single Neon tetra? These need to be in groups of at least 8, or even more, in a properly cycled tank and one would not do well at all.

 

[Fishface11]

What exactly is your tank set-up? Filter? Aeration? Plants?
Current water parameters?
What fish are the fry and their mum? (Something must be going right for them to breed, unless we're talking livebearers, which seem to breed regardless).
By 'neon', do you mean that you have a single Neon tetra? These need to be in groups of at least 8, or even more, in a properly cycled tank and one would not do well at all.

All I want to know is should I vac the soil/ gravel substrate or is it ok to leave it, is it beneficial for the plants thanks

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Hi I’ve got soil on the bottom and gravel on the top , there’s about 30/40 fry in there with the mum and 3 corys and 1 neon , it’s a 40 litre tank it’s not very big but I thought with all that there’s guna be a lot of poop , is it safe to leave it ?,it’s not going to cause any bacteria problems is it?,or any problems , I don’t know what’s the best thing to do thanks

I would maybe try to get just the top. Trying to vacuum gravel with soil underneath is tricky, because you don’t want to suck up the soil.

 

[Byron]

All I want to know is should I vac the soil/ gravel substrate or is it ok to leave it, is it beneficial for the plants thanks

There is good reason for the info requested by @Bruce Leyland-Jones, and members providing advice without all the data may not be in your best interest. Nevertheless, I will leave that and respond to your question by saying that the idea behind using a soil base substrate is that the substrate supposedly never needs "cleaning." The nutrients are replaced (soil usually is devoid of any nutrients within a year) regularly by fish waste entering the substrate and being broken down by various bacteria. So theoretically, you should never have to touch the substrate. However, in practice I suspect this rarely if ever works, given how most of us over-populate the tank and the natural benefits are unable to really manage things. And Corydoras should never be kept over soil-based substrates for bacterial reasons.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

All I want to know is should I vac the soil/ gravel substrate or is it ok to leave it, is it beneficial for the plants thanks

The tanks we take responsibility for are complex little ecosystems and need to be considered as a collection of interacting parts.
Each individual componant has an effect in the whole...and the whole has an effect on each individual part.
Simply by looking at the state of the water, you can determine if it's a healthy tank or not and, if it is, then it ain't broke and doesn't need fixing. You can simply leave things as they are and, in answer to what you think is a simple question, you don't need to vac your substrate.
However...if your water isn't healthy, then you need to know what it is that is making it so. It might be your substrate, or it might not.

As @Byron says, Corydoras don't do well on a substrate with soil in it, unless everything is perfect...which it very rarely is. This suggests your fish may be stressed.
Likewise for that single Neon Tetra.
Stressed fish contribute to the tank's imbalance and an imbalanced tank is harder to manage, as you'll find yourself leaping from one crisis to the next and the hobby stops being fun.
Whether or not it is 'beneficial for the plants' would depend upon the plant species used and, again, the health of the plants is linked directly to everything else.

Most of us in here can answer questions with guesses, even educated guesses...but the more info we have, the better and more definite the answers to your questions we can give. As for my question about what fish are the fry, some fish prefer older, even stagnant waters, whilst some prefer fast flowing streams and others go for the stuff inbetween. Knowing what fish you have would inform us as to whether or not cleaning your substrate would be a good, or a bad, idea.

 

[Fishface11]

I would maybe try to get just the top. Trying to vacuum gravel with soil underneath is tricky, because you don’t want to suck up the soil.

Thank you