cleaning tanks

[AlexsDaddy]

I have recently been bitten by the betta bug. I have 3 filtered tanks, one 1G, one 1.5g, and one 2.5G, each with one betta in them. All have plants growing in them. What is the best way to clean tanks with plants and how often should it be done? Do I drain the water and put the plants in a container with the old water? Do I just clean the sides of the tank with a paper towel without removing any water or plants? I know that the gravel contains a lot of the benificial bacteria and I don't want to over clean that. I don't want to have to uproot the plants just to have them floating around in there after I put them back. I'm confused!! Searching on the net doesn't seem to help much. Any and all help will be much appreciated!

 

[tstenback]

All i do for regular maintenance on my planted tanks is basically the same as any other tank. First i take an algae scraper, if required, and remove the algae from the glass. Then i do a water change 20-30% of the water. As i remove the water i make sure i suck all the stuff off the bottom that i can either using a gravel vac or the end of the syphon hose. Then rinse/swish/squeeze (depends on type of filter) the filter media in the old tank water and then put the media back into the filter (depends on type of filter). After that i replace the water with new conditioned water, wipe up the excess water on the tank and surrounding area (i tend to be messy ) and then its off to the next tank. HTH