How Often??

[fatboy8]

I have a bare bottom 65 gallon community tank that I vacuum on a weekly basis. I can't stand a lot of particle build up on the bottom of the tank. Even when I had substrate I still did it on a weekly basis. How often does everyone else vacuum their tank?

 

[fishhead0103666]

I'm doing it daily at this point since my rhino pleco can put out quite a lot of waste.

 

[kno4te]

Twice a week.

 

[TwoHedWlf]

I have a bare bottom 65 gallon community tank that I vacuum on a weekly basis. I can't stand a lot of particle build up on the bottom of the tank. Even when I had substrate I still did it on a weekly basis. How often does everyone else vacuum their tank?

Weekly...Ish...Maybe every second or third week...Usually only do part of my substrate when I do it when I'm doing my weekly water change.

 

[Rob909]

With power heads pointed directly at the bottom of bare bottom tanks, the particles at the bottom blow up into the water column. Then they can get sucked up by the filters. Or you can have your filter intake on one side of the tank and your power heads on the other. Either way, it blows everything into the filter. This way you don’t have to vacuum particles so often.

 

[esoxlucius]

With a bare bottom tank of that size, coupled with a well placed powerhead and good flow through your system, you'll never need to vacuum again. As Rob909 said, any particles don't have time to settle, they just get swished up and sucked into your filter via your outlet.

 

[Gourami Swami]

Depends on the tank, heavier stocked tanks I do 2x a week when I can, my usual is 1x per week.
I agree that with strategic powerhead placement you can greatly reduce the gathered crap on the bottom. This will probably increase the amount of suspended particles floating around, so pick your poison pretty much.

 

[PYRU]

1-2x

 

[taksan]

With large loricariids ... several times a week as their poop is pretty heavy and doesn’t really get up into the water column as much.

 

[pacu mom]

I have a bare bottom 65 gallon community tank that I vacuum on a weekly basis. I can't stand a lot of particle build up on the bottom of the tank. Even when I had substrate I still did it on a weekly basis. How often does everyone else vacuum their tank?

Try extending your uptakes down vertically to just off the floor. If they are strategically placed, they will remove the debris off the floor. In our tank, the debris scuttles across the floor and is removed from the tank by our "poop sucker" pipes. The advantage of a bare floor tank is that you shouldn't have to vacuum....ever. Even if you are just using HOBs to filter your tank, you can get tubing and extend your uptakes to just off the floor. This has worked extremely well for us, and there has been nothing to vacuum in the 12 1/2 years the tank has been running.