Cleaning gravel

[Waterloo Kid]

I'd just like to know if anyone out there in cyberland could give me a quick and easy way of cleaning the gravel in my tank? Obviously I use a siphon gravel vac for the open parts of the floor but I'm having trouble cleaning the gravel in between the plants in the tank. I do have a lot of plants too (about 100 individual plants in all).Is there a way of giving the gravel in these areas a good service without uprooting all the plants? It took ages to get them in how I like them and lots of them are going to have pretty extensive root networks in the gravel (5-10mm pea gravel) by now. I'm having cyanobacteria problems and think that the gravel by the plants is acting as a nutrient source. Your help is appreciated!

WK

 

[Fishsmurf]

WK,

I don't have many live plants myself, but have read of people recommending using the airline (or slightly larger (garden) hose) to get into difficult to reach place and around root networks. Same syphon method, just a smaller pice of tubing.

HTH....

 

[Jesse]

May not help you any...but I only have 1 live plant...I take out all the large objects like the teracotta pot, the rocks, shells, and fake plants. Then I vacuum the gravel.