Planted Tanks

[Inchworm]

What Aquamanis just described is what bothers me about not cleaning. Every week I pull up large amounts of dirt from the gravel. True, the plants use it to grow, but it seems like the fish produce more than must be needed for that purpose.

Doesn't what remains have any effect on the fish, especially on bottom feeders?

 

[AquaNut]

I guess how much you feed and how your tanks are stocked, and with what, would make a difference. I feed a couple of times a day. Once with just a little flake and then a large meal, consisting of either something frozen or something live, or else varied dried and freeze dried foods to accomodate all the different fish (shrimp pellets for the cories, algae wafers for the pleco etc etc). None of my tanks could be called lightly stocked, save for the betta tanks. When I vacuum the bare areas in my tank, I definitely get mulm, but it's absolutely not black! It's more beige and colourless than anything else. I have bottom feeders in all my tanks and never have any problems with any of them. In my different tanks, I have a pleco, three yo yo loaches, two skunk botias, three kuhli loaches, six cories, and four otos.

 

[Rose]

What Aquamanis just described is what bothers me about not cleaning. Every week I pull up large amounts of dirt from the gravel. True, the plants use it to grow, but it seems like the fish produce more than must be needed for that purpose.

Doesn't what remains have any effect on the fish, especially on bottom feeders?

Yes it does have an effect on the bottom feeders. If left unchecked it can cause the barbels on cory's and loaches to errode. This is not good for the fish. However you don't need to get it all out just some of it.

As for that black stuff if I go longer than 5 or so days with out vaccuming my tanks I will pull that stuff out for what seems like an eternity. Why I get it that bad I don't know. My fish get fed 2-3x a week and thats it. Heavily planted and lightly stocked (one of them is anyway). Regular water changes and vaccuming and testing helps keep things in check.

 

[Inchworm]

It does seem that more comes out than what goes in, doesn't it?

I do know that whenever my corys seem listless a quick vacume perks them right up. Having so many corys, I never change water without sucking it up from the bottom.

This may seem strange, but the tank I vacume the least dirt out of is my goldfish tank. For plants, it only has anacharis which serves both as decoration and food. What seems to happen here is that they are so active that their poop gets broken up and filtered out before very much can work its way into the gravel. Then, too, I wonder if their waste is less toxic (since they are fed mostly granule and flake food) than that of the tropicals who eat a diet heavy on worms and other creatures.

 

[AquaNut]

Inchworm, you make a very good point, which is that you think a lot of waste from your goldfish might get filtered out before it settles in the substrate. I was thinking the same thing. Perhaps part of the difference in muck between one tank and the next has to do with the filtration on the tank. Certainly if I was vacuuming up the black stuff you guys are describing, I'd be doing more vigilant vacuuming for the sake of all my bottom dwellers, but it's just not the case in my tanks. Maybe it's because all my tanks are 'over filtered' (I don't really think there is such a thing). There is really never any detritus sitting on top of my substrate or on my plants.