excess rubbish?

[c1tyfc]

Hello. I do 25% water changes weekly using a gravel vac to remove the old water. But after i have added the new water there is a lot of 'stuff/debris' floating around in my tank.

Do i need to to do more regular changes? or clean the gravel more thoroughly?

I am using a fluval 2 plus filter with a spray bar attachment, is this adequate? it came with the tank.(about 32 UK gal)

Or am i worrying about nothing as it all settles down again in an hour or so?

Would an undergravel filter help? Don't really know much about these.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Moe]

Whenever you clean your tank using a gravel vac you do stir up some of the debris in the gravel. Most gets sucked up the vac. A small amount may begin to float around the tank. If it all clears in an hour or so I would not worry about it. It is possible to overclean your gravel. You should only clean one quarter to one-third of the gravel once a week and leave the rest undisturbed. That way you are not disturbing too much of the bacteria that live in the gravel. When I first started doing this I had a hard time not overcleaning the gravel. I wanted the entire bottom to be clean every week. This is too much. Each section of the gravel should be cleaned well once a month.

 

[freshwatergal]

I get this as well, even if I am doing a gravel vac. How often do you do a gravel vac?

Just one peice of advice, I would stay away from undergravel filters. I have heard nothing but bad things about them.

HTH
Tiff

 

[thecichlidaddict]

It doesn't sound like anything to worry about to me if it's settling down again afterwards.

A UGF will not help, they don't do anything for mechanical filtration - it's actually opposite - a debris and gunk builds up under the filter plates and ends up degrading water quality in the long term.