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Clean freak!

Joined
4 Feb 2012
Messages
406
Location
Cambridgeshire
New to the hobby and trying not to ask too many questions before i have had a read, but sometimes my brain is very much like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole!!

my tank is a 300 ltre low tech
just lights and filtration

im becoming obsessed with cleaning (my wife will never attest to this)
i have a gravel base and the fish waiste is very obvious ... my tank has been running for 6 weeks and i have been doing a weekly 50% water change ( not a complete new tank stripped down my old 180 and moved into new tank)

my problem is i keep doing gravel cleans to reduce the amount of detritus but the amount of time it takes i end up doing another minimum of 30-40% water change!

my question is should i be so worried about the build up or is the natural waiste actually good for my plants

thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this

ps will not always be a newb one day i will pay it forward :lol:
 
As long as your water readings are fine then I wouldn't think its anything to actually worry about. The waste will sink in to the gravel and get broken down (so is good for the plants in that respect :) ), but I take it you just don't like the look of it?
Can I ask if there some reason why your fish produce so much waste? I hope I'm not coming across as being funny, just curious 'cos I've got a number of tanks with various sorts of fish in and none have an issue like this. My barb tank comes closest I suppose 'cos I occassionally see some little poos in the gravel (orangey poos on black gravel show up quite well! lol) but even these never hang around for long or build up to become unsightly. Are your fish particularly heavy waste producers? If so maybe you need extra filtration, or more flow to ensure waste gets moved around to the filter intake? Sorry, not much help am I!

Viv
 
I think that as long as the waste is settling and not being held in suspension there should be no worry. The bacteria in the gravel will continue breaking it down releasing the nutrients for your plant to use and effectively making an inert substrate work in a similar way to a nutrient rich substrate.

To echo Viv since you're clearly up on your water changes and general maintenance. Depending on stocking levels I think you could consider even less water changes. Look at some of Tom Barr's low tech tanks, minimal water changes to keep CO2 constant and still very healthy fish.

Do you get much algae issues?

Shaun
 
Sounds like there's plenty of filtration then!

If you're heavily planted and not using any form of carbon enrichment i.e. CO2 injection or liquid carbon fertiliser, then consider following non-CO2 methodology.

The potential issue with frequent water changes in a non-CO2 setup is the triggering of algae due to fluctuating CO2 levels brought about by the water changes.

As long as you are not heavily stocked with fish then the plants should be able to break down the accumulated waste and use it as nutrients.

Here's an excellent link to get you started - http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.ph ... O2-methods
 
Thanks that is a really helpful link, looks like its time for me to do some serious reading
the poor tank so far has not stood a chance through my 50% water changes, then random 30/40 % while i try to clean every last piece of gravel!

time to concentrate on my plant care and understanding
watch this space, i will manage to be the first clubhanded colourblind aquascaper :)
 
somethingfishy said:
Thanks that is a really helpful link, looks like its time for me to do some serious reading
the poor tank so far has not stood a chance through my 50% water changes, then random 30/40 % while i try to clean every last piece of gravel!

time to concentrate on my plant care and understanding
watch this space, i will manage to be the first clubhanded colourblind aquascaper :)
Sounds good to me! I'd like to see more folk try out non-CO2 methods on here. I need to do one myself as some point.
 
Couldn't have said it better than George.

I think it's the product of high lighting being pushed as the way to improve plant growth which then leads most people to go with CO2 units to combat the inevitable algae.

There are some amazing tanks using low light and so avoiding many issues. Some of my personal favourites are Tom Barr's - http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.ph ... ecos/page5 (love his emersed setups!) and Oliver Knott's - http://www.pbase.com/plantella/330hnlme
 
Greg's Pea said:
Couldn't have said it better than George.

I think it's the product of high lighting being pushed as the way to improve plant growth which then leads most people to go with CO2 units to combat the inevitable algae.

There are some amazing tanks using low light and so avoiding many issues. Some of my personal favourites are Tom Barr's - http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.ph ... ecos/page5 (love his emersed setups!) and Oliver Knott's - http://www.pbase.com/plantella/330hnlme

Thanks alot for the extra links they are some very impressive tanks there ... guess now im better informed it feels like my tank is back to day one :lol:

Really looking forward to how this method works out for me or rather how well i work the method !!
will update my journal and maybe look into some more fish as i dont think i have that many compared
to tank size and plant mass.

thanks for all the help
 
This is what I have been trying to do with my tank a 450l Juwel vision. I have no CO2 or fertiliser addition (other than root tabs). I do 25% water change every two weeks, and open the filter once a month. I have no real algae issues except a little spot or two on the glass. this is more down to catching a little sun from the living room window as it is slightly worse in the summer.

I have a reasonably high fish load but the fish are very happy with the balance I seem to have. Plants are Crypts, Vallis, Apongeton and Anubias at the moment. I have just added some Hydrocotyle sp. Japan so we will see how that does!! The plants seem to all be doing fine but growth is very very slow.

I think the only thing I would do differently (if I had found UKAPS before building this tank) would have been to have a more nutricious substrate.

Andy
 
i could not agree more andy

ive ordered some red root floaters to cut my light down a bit
im still not sure about 0 water changes ... was thinking about trying to diy
a tube with some floss or something in to do a wasite clean up but cycle the water
straight back into the tank.
delicately so not to disturb to much :)
my crypts have grown quite well and the vallis the best i can say is nothing seems to
be going backwards.
 
If you want to vacuum without removing water you can get air pump driven gravel vacuums that don't remove water. Algarde make one that was stocked at PAH and there are probably many other brands and LFS that do them. I have never used them so no idea how good they are. Might be worth a look?

andy
 
awtong said:
If you want to vacuum without removing water you can get air pump driven gravel vacuums that don't remove water. Algarde make one that was stocked at PAH and there are probably many other brands and LFS that do them. I have never used them so no idea how good they are. Might be worth a look?

andy

Once again thanks for another good tip

my diy idea had very wet floor written all over it :oops:
 
I agree. On a tank that size an air driven one probably wouldn't work if it's deep. You can get a power gravel cleaner which is more like a hob filter. It'll hang on the side and return the water to the tank.
 
I still don't really like the NPT method of 6 month or less water changes but think once a month or so is fine. Yes we can keep nitrates under check with plant growth but that is one of the few things we can actually test for and not the only factor of fish health. I still think we need to keep diluting our fishy homes as no matter how much we want to kid ourselves it's always a relatively small amount of water and not a river or mythical biosphere.

I think you are definitely coming at this from the right angle somethingfishy and soon will have happy fish in a stunning tank.

The probem for me is always what I want my own tanks to achieve. So many options and not enough tanks! For instance I think Iwagumi scapes have a place and can look stunning but wouldn't want one in my house and like others have echoed, some of the stunning scapes wouldn't look out of place with a model train tooting about.
 
Greg's Pea said:
The probem for me is always what I want my own tanks to achieve. So many options and not enough tanks! For instance I think Iwagumi scapes have a place and can look stunning but wouldn't want one in my house and like others have echoed, some of the stunning scapes wouldn't look out of place with a model train tooting about.

Luckily for me im a dreamer not a doer :lol:
now i have got this far i will sit back and watch things grow (hopefully)
admittedly while daydreaming about a dozen other tanks i wished i had the skill to achieve

not sure if i will make it to 6 months without any level of water change ... i dunno ????
Does anyone ever follow any guideline to the letter :lol:
 
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