Cleaning gravel= killing beneficial bacteria
- Thread starter theomega
- Start date
Are you seeing ammonia spikes after cleaning the gravel? Some BB live there but the majority would be in your filter. I don't know what your set up is but I will assume that you have some kind of bio-ball or ceramic ring in your filter. The loss of any BB while cleaning the gravel should be more than compensated by the BB in the filter.
If you disturb the gravel too much all the time you will disturb it, best to clean half the gravel at a time and just skim the surface the other times.
You have a filter on that tank right? Then chances are that your filters got ceramic rings/sponge. Im sure you got BB growing there. How exactly are you cleaning the gravel? Vaccing with a python? When I clean my tank I vac the gravel thoroughly to get all the crap out, never had any ammonia problems. What's the point of cleaning the tank if you don't do it thoroughly right?
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Yes you are surely killing some. But the bb grows on all surfaces. Like others stated mostly in your filters. Some media has crazy amounts of surface area. IMO it is better to clean your gravel than to let detrius build up in your substrate
clean all the gravel each time. doing so will not kill any. they are stuck to the substrate (and everything else) via their sticky outer coats.
contrary to myth, you cannot 'suck' the bacteria off the gravel just by normal gravel vaccuming.
contrary to myth, you cannot 'suck' the bacteria off the gravel just by normal gravel vaccuming.
i vac all my tanks gravel once a week with wc. I hate dirty tanks. Being said i never had problems with my tanks bb because i have multi filters on each tank. Also when i clean the filters i make sure i do it on a different day then the vac and wc.