What Gravel Vacuum should I get?

[Personwithafishtank]

I've been keeping fish for 10 months now and previously, I had a 5 gallon tank that I was able to completely clean out while putting the fish in a separate container along with much of the water. However a few months ago I got a 20 gallon tank, and its much to big to clean like that, and recently Ive noticed the ammonia levels in the tank rise a tiny bit above 0 so I assumed it was time to vacuum my gravel, However im a bit overwhelmed by the amount of choices on what to buy and what tutorial to watch. So if you guys could link me to the best gravel vacuum and a good tutorial on how to use it I would really appreciate it

 

[Essjay]

Something like this is the simplest
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003XLBZNO/?tag=
I don't know which country you are in but there should be something similar available.

The wide end should be pushed down into the gravel until no more debris comes out, then the tube moved to the next bit of gravel. This should be done at every water change. If you haven't cleaned the gravel yet, you probably won't be able to do the whole of the gravel straight away as there'll be too much muck in there. Since you have a reading for ammonia, you need to do a water change of at least 50% every day there is a raised level so clean another bit of gravel every day. Once the ammonia (and nitrite) level settles back down to zero, you can go back to weekly 50%+ water changes and gravel cleans.



Fish shouldn't be removed during a water change/substrate clean as it is very stressful for them. Leave them in the tank while you use a siphon tube to clean it.





Re the ammonia level, there must be a reason the level has gone up. Decomposing fish poop, uneaten food etc in the gravel will decompose to make ammonia but the filter bacteria should turn this into nitrite then nitrate almost instantly.
Have you changed the filter media, or done something else to damage the bacteria colonies?

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Everything @essjay said! Also how often do you do water changes, and how large a change do you do? Are you using a water conditioner too?

I love this video for teaching how to clean substrate, I learned how to start a syphon without having to suck on the end of the hose from watching this video too

Cory crimps the hose in order to pause the flow while moving the syphon around, but I personally find it easier and faster to just hold my thumb over the end of the tube that's in the bucket when I want to pause the flow. I use a little stool thing to rest the bucket on so I can reach both the tank and the bucket at the same time, but the bucket is still low enough for a syphon to work. Practice makes perfect with these things! Best to clean the substrate every time you do a water change.

You can also get a different syphon according to your tank needs. Changes are you'll want a relatively small one for a 20 gallon. I use a very small one for my 15 and 12 gallon tanks, they're also heavily planted so a small syphon like the one essay linked is perfect for those, allows me to clean around the plants without damaging them, and doesn't suck up too much water before I've had chance to finish cleaning the gravel - pausing the flow while you move it around helps with that too.

But for the large 57 gallon which has much larger pieces of substrate and needs a much bigger volume of water removed, that small syphon is useless. Substrate would get stuck in the small end bit, and it would take forever to remove enough water, so I have a much larger syphon with a longer hose for that one. I also got one that has a much longer head piece/hard tube, because the height of the tank means I need a longer end so I can hold it and reach the substrate easily.