Cold blooded murderer!

[SarahPD229]

I purchased an electric gravel cleaner and am really pleased at the way it does the job, the only thing is that whenever I use it I always lose a fish! The first was a cardinal tetra and the second one of my "sucky sucky fish" (glass suckers, well thats what I call them!)
I assume that I am somehow covering them with gravel, but I am really careful, and try to keep the vacuum to one end and the fish all congregate at the other, the vacuum isn't THAT powerful!! Does anyone else have this problem? I hate accidentally killing the fishes!

 

[adeyc]

Haven't heard of that before. Mostly the fish will swim away from the disturbance caused by the cleaning.
How are you using the Gravel vac'?

 

[Rose]

most fish will run from the gravel vaccum. I say most because I have a tank full of fish that do just the opposite. They swim up the gravel vaccum. I have a water python I use for my water changes and well my fish love to swim in in it. It's like a game with them. Fortunately my fish are too big to get sucked into the hose part of it.

back to the suject at hand. Are you sure they weren't dead before you did the gravel cleaning? By cleaning the gravel you found them. Just a thought. Rose

 

[SarahPD229]

Thanks for the replies....in answer to your questions, no they weren't already dead, and mysteriously they both dissappeared without a trace. That why I think I must have covered them in gravel! The cardinal tetras and the sucky fish were both a bit brave by swimming close to the suction tube. I will just have to be extra extra vigilant next time. I'm not sure of the name of the cleaner I have as I'm at work at the moment, I'll let you know later.

 

[SarahPD229]

Its called a "power gravel cleaner".

 

[Davy Reynolds]

Mine are daft, they try to swim up the pipe all the time

 

[Rose]

Have you looked in the decorations to see if they got stuck there? Rose

 

[pete]

Just a helpful hint for you

When you clean your gravel folks only clean 1/3 of the total surface area of the subsrtate at a time ie 1/3 on each weekly water change as the helpful bacteria that colonizes the gravel also gets washed away and you could end up with real problems if not careful

As for the fish i suppose that it is possible that you could of covered them up with the return flow of gravel but it could also be down to the above and your other fish have eaten the dead remains :0 believe me it does happen as i found out when i "lost" my Vampire Pleco and on the next water change found a picked clean skull the only remains :0

Just remember that the secret with cleaning your tank is not to clean it too well as most areas in the tank do contain helpful bacteria which if removed can upset the whole balance of the tank

hope this helps

 

[William]

I knew that some bacteria where in the gravel and on artificial plants but I was always under the impression that over 80%of the bacteria were living in the filter, so wouldn't imagine it would make a big difference. But then I have only been keeping fish for 6 months so trust the experts

 

[pete]

Believe me it does make a difference as i have learned the hard way in the past.

The problem is that the bacteria live at differevt levels in the gravel, when you use a gravel cleaner you essentially mix up these layers and thus all the bacteria contained within.....

This causes the bacteria to die and contaminate the system with poisons resulting in dead fish.

It is not just me with this opinion as all of the members of my local fish club and nearly all of my local fish shops advise only cleaning 1/3 of the gravel as they are aware of this problem

You may get away with cleaning your gravel all at once for months on end but sooner or later it will catch up with you and when it does its sods law that when it does it will wipe out all of your most prized fish and leave the bread and butter ones just living

Like i said i speak from experience so i know

And yes 80% of your bacteria is in the filter media but if the dead bacteria from over cleaning your gravel get into that filter media they can not always but sometimes in big enough doses kill off some of your filter bacteria

You have been warned!!

 

[adeyc]

It's similar to stirring a sand substrate every so often so the stuff doesn't compact and kill the good bacteria etc.

 

[pete]

Yup you got it lol :laugh: