aquascaping and maintenance...

[cvermeulen]

How do you all manage your tank maintenance around things like driftwood and so on? I usually drain as much water as I'm going to, then move the driftwood one piece at a time so I can clean under them... the tank is 3 feet tall though, so it's a serious pain in the butt. Should I just not bother?

Down the road I think I'll be putting a Hydor Koralia powerhead in there to hopefully circulate water enough to keep buildup out from under the logs. Thoughts on that?

 

[duke33]

I've tried that. It just blows a big hole in the gravel.I'll have to watch this post t see if anyone has anygood suggestions.

 

[Greenaveli]

I'll probably get flammed for this but I don't more anything. Actually I don't vacuum my gravel at all. I have been just drainning and replacing the water for about a year now. I've never like moving driftwood or rocks. When I did vacuum gravel I just went around objects in the tank.

 

[BlackTopKing]

I dont either but I have alot of live aquatic plants that pretty much use the junk as fert

 

[Angel51087]

i vaccuum every water change but tend to only do under the wood every 2-4 weeks as it never gets bad enough to need more. I don't think it's a bad thing to leave as long as the majority is removed.

 

[crashinc25]

You'd be amazed what 5 seconds of a powerhead aimed at the substrate will do. If I have a buildup under rocks/whatever, I just blast a powerhead at it to get EVERYTHING moving. Besides this, I have my regular powerheads keeping current moving, and then a second set of powerheads that go on when th elight goes off that blow the opposite direction. Kind of like day/night tides.

 

[ShadowBass]

I do water changes on most of my tanks biweekly and take everything out and siphon the bottom every week or couple of weeks depending on the tank.

My 55g with baby dats I do a water change every day and take everything out of the tank every 3-4 days and siphon the bottom.

Just yesterday we got done barebottoming all but one of our tanks so they'll get a bit more maintanance, probably water change every 3 days and take everything out to siphon the bottom every week, but siphoning any noticeable gunk off the bottom whenever I see it while I'm doing a water change.

The tank that still has substrate is a 125g tank with africans so it won't get thorough siphoning as much since there's a bunch of rocks in there.

Most of our tanks are heavily stocked and there are no plants, so we're trying to be pretty meticulous with maintanance so the nitrates don't end up out of control.