Cleaning Tips with rcs

[archaic37]

I have a small 2.5 gallon hexagon tank with about 15 rcs and was wondering if there are any effective ways to clean the gravel in a small tank without sucking up small rcs

 

[Fat Homer]

There must be those tiny syphons you can buy in the US? i know in HK with so many people having tiny tanks, they also have tiny syphons just for that purpose... so might be worth checking around?

 

[demonte1997]

I found it next to impossible to do any gravel cleaning when I had baby RCS flying around everywhere. Made it a huge PITA. I'd sit with a net and slowly dump out the waste water while looking for them. If that's not an issue for ya, I'd see if you can get some clear airline tubing and syphon water out with that. Will take a lot longer but won't pull the shrimp out.

 

[torval]

i keep my rcs in a 10 gallon. what i do is use a normal gravel vac, but i start it by sticking it deep into the gravel. i then barely pick it up each step and push the shrimp out of the way. i rarely get any shrimp, even babies this way. if i do i net them out of the bucket i siphon into after the water settles.

btw a good tip to remember is the larger the difference in height between your tank and the container you are siphoning into the greater the force of the suction will be. this is because the water is technically "falling" so it gains speed the farther it falls. keep it a foot or so difference and you'll suck up less shrimp, and the ones who do get in will swim right back out the tube. also, your tank will empty slower.

 

[Inglorious]

You can get something called a cleaning claw, which fits on the end of your syphon tube that acts like a prefilter by only allowing smaller items to be sucked up. I'll see if I can dig up a link when I get home.