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Planted tank maintenance

tennis4you

Member
Joined
7 Jul 2008
Messages
137
Location
USA
How do you guys clean your tanks when they are stock full of plants? I am always afraid I will uproot the stem plants. And how often do you clean your tank? Before I started planting the tank I was cleaning 1/3 of the gravel each week. But now I am far less and wondering if that is bad.
 
Very very carefully... If you have a reasonable amount of rosette plants amongst the stems, they should use a lot of the waste as ferts. I tend to use planting stick or equivalent to disturb the surface and simultaneously gently siphon out the rising detritus. BTW I have quartz gravel on top of substrate so nutrients aren't released into the water.
 
sari said:
Very very carefully... If you have a reasonable amount of rosette plants amongst the stems, they should use a lot of the waste as ferts. I tend to use planting stick or equivalent to disturb the surface and simultaneously gently siphon out the rising detritus. BTW I have quartz gravel on top of substrate so nutrients aren't released into the water.

I have SMS so it is easy to stir around if you are not careful. It seems to be very light weight.

Thanks for the feedback!
 
I don't disturb the substrate (playsand on top of clay based tropica.)

I just syphon the front section ½inch above the substrate and it pulls up all the poop. I leave what is not in immediate view.

AC
 
SuperColey1 said:
I don't disturb the substrate (playsand on top of clay based tropica.)

I just syphon the front section ½inch above the substrate and it pulls up all the poop. I leave what is not in immediate view.

AC


Same here, I also tend to wave the vac around above the short plants but get in amongst the stem plants now & again to get any dead leaves, etc.
 
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