Gravel Cleaning

[jeff_hopkinson]

Hi, yes i am back again, all this input i am getting about substrate is mind blowing, Anyway two questions first on reading up i have decided to go with gravel and the advise is to use a small gravel but because i have corrydoras i am worried they will damage ther barbles is the small gravel o.k, or would you suggest putting a top layer of pea gravel on. secondly with having a lot of plants how do get in to clean the gravel without upsetting all of the plants. Any input will be welcome.

 

[George Farmer]

Fine gravel should do fine with corys. Just ensure it is rounded grains with no sharp edges, which most common gravel will be (rounded that is). If you’re going planted it may be an idea to use an additive i.e. laterite mixed with the gravel.

Vacuuming gravel in a planted tank is a pain if you are heavily planted. I prefer to understock with fish and plant almost 100% of the substrate. The plants then deal with the detritus. Before I stripped my tank down I never vacuumed my gravel and even when all the plants were pulled out the water didn’t cloud too much (almost a year’s accumulation of poo etc.)

A heavily (fish) stocked planted tank will need vacuuming though so it’ll be unwise to plant too heavily.

I know jimbooo vacuums his substrate regularly because he has a large fish load. Perhaps he can share some tips?

 

[jimbooo]

3mm gravel will be fine. i have the same in my rio180 (pics in rio180 journal in sig) with 3 sterbai corys in there.

if you have a good carpet of plants you wont need to clean the gravel much at all. unless your overstocked with big pooping fish like plecs etc the plants and cory's will take care of it for you. i can only access about 15% of my gravel for cleaning and dont really have much of a problem even with a big plec and angel in there.

gf225 never cleaned his gravel, just removed water from the top of the tank for water changes. when i pulled his tank apart the other day the ammount of detritus under the glosso was negligable. dont worry about it.

edit: great minds think alike hey. your ears must have been burning george!!

 

[Seidge]

Can you clean sand with a gravel vac or will it just suck the sand out? I am thinking of changing to sand cos i have 3 corys and 2 kuhle loaches, i think they may prefer sand. But i am worried about cleaning

 

[jimbooo]

i've only had sand for about 48 hours but have vacced it once. you hover about 2 inches above the sand and swirl the end of the vac. the crud floats up and gets sucked in the sand only gets sucked out if you actually dig the vac into it.

i've done the same think, fish all coming out to make room for 4 or 5 corys. go ahead, you'll be fine