Need Fish To Keep My Gravel Under Control

[polerz]

I have a big tank, its pictures are here: http/members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/

I cant exactly vacuum the gravel, its too hard. I'm getting a cannister filter + I have two fluval power filters in there.

I'm planning to put about 10-15 fish in there, all will be very harty fish, how important is gravel vacumming? It's pretty much impossible with this tank.

I was thinking of getting fish which sit down the bottom and just suck on stuff like catfish! But I dont want them to eat my other fish when theres no food around.

Its a cold water tank, any suggestions on how to keep the gravel under control?

(not putting a UGF in there.)

 

[emma12321]

Hi,

Just wondering why the gravel is too hard to vac, do you have it too deep or something? If you leave it and never vac it it could get a build up or anerobic bacteria then if it gets disturbed bubbles of gas will kill off your fish. If the tank is too deep for you to reach the bottom you can buy longer vacs made for deeper tanks. (just looked at your pics those tanks are such a stupid design as they hardly give any swimming room and are too deep for easy maintenance, but you have it now so get a longerr vac) My tank is only 2 foot deep and i have a vac that i can use without wet arms, i've seen longer ones for sale.

edit:you say 10 - 15 fish not goldfish i hope as it will be way over stocked. You should have 20 gallons for the first goldfish and 10 gallons for each additional one, how many gallons does it hold?

Emma

 

[mantis147]

I have a big tank, its pictures are here: http/members.iinet.com.au/~polerz/pics/

I cant exactly vacuum the gravel, its too hard. I'm getting a cannister filter + I have two fluval power filters in there.

I'm planning to put about 10-15 fish in there, all will be very harty fish, how important is gravel vacumming? It's pretty much impossible with this tank.

I was thinking of getting fish which sit down the bottom and just suck on stuff like catfish! But I dont want them to eat my other fish when theres no food around.

Its a cold water tank, any suggestions on how to keep the gravel under control?

(not putting a UGF in there.)

Im sure ive seen mechanical vaccums just try & get a long hose as your tank is very deep!!! looks hard work!!

 

[polerz]

its about 450-500L, about 150GAL I think, cbb working it out haha

Where do you get these long gravel vacs? The longest one I can find is 66cm

One more question, can you sit cannister filters above the waterline of a tank? I was planning on sitting it ontop of the tank itself.

 

[england]

in my tank i have a common plec<coldwater>it was in cold from baby and is fine in tank does a brill job but as for cleaning gravel totally listen to the people above my lfs sells them in a cold and a trop tank

 

[Shelly_Otterkin]

Wow, thats a lot of water with vary little surface area. In a tank like that you need to think about how much O2 excange is going on. Do you have a air pump? I do not even know if you can get one that will go that deep. Its a great looking tank but not a fish friendly one.You can find sites that can help you find out how many inches of fish you can have for that much surface area.

You can make a gravel cleaner that will work by buying PVC pipe that is the same size as the up tube. Remove the up tube from the top and place over PVC pipe.

As for bottom feeders you have a small amount of bottom space per the amount of water also. None of the biger cats will work, a bristle nose percotamous(sp?) would not bother your GF and do fine in CW.

 

[polerz]

I have two air stones down the bottom keeping the water moving hooked upto a big air pump

 

[LucyHurst]

I definatly wouldnt put that many goldfish in there, they need a long tank for swimming room, and having 15 goldfish swimming up and down in there will be very stressfull on them.

 

[severina]

Get a regular gravel vac...buy some really long tubing....duct tape the vac to a broom stick or something and BAM! There you go.