water change!!
- Thread starter g-money1990
- Start date
In most planted aquariums, you don't gravel vac the substrate. Thats why you never see really heavy stocked planted tanks. You can go over the surface without touching the substrate and try sucking up a little waste, but if you actually gravel vac, you remove a bunch of nutrients your plants are looking for. If you have waste building up, your tank is probably overstocked or underplanted. What are the fish and plant stocking in your tank like? And what size tank?
If you have excess detritus you can just use the gravel vac at the surface, don't actually stir the substrate.
Watch this thread for a new post on this topic. Even the best have excess detritus, and as such need to remove it. This even includes Takashi Amano.softturtle;748970;748970 said:
WyldFya;749104; said:
I think we need a little more info on the type of set-up we are trying to help out here. I beleive if it were an Amano style set-up, you could gravel vac the foreground substrate as it is usually not a planting substrate containing nutrients for plants (you know how amano divides the substrate that will be visible and what will be actual planting medium). But as for going in and hitting your actual planting substrate with gravel vac, I would stay away from it.
But like I said in my previous post, I am all for a light surface cleaning above the substrate to get rid of unwanted debris and waste that are on top of the substrate.
Wyldfya- I've been keeping an eye on that thread, its an interesting one.
i just get as close as i can and move the gravel vac around to kick up the dirt so i can suck it out.