...fish going missing just to stress me out..

Coler

Coler

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Jan 30, 2007
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I swear they do it on purpose; just did a water change (about 30%). Also moved some of the rocks to get a gravel vac in behind.

Replaced rocks...waiting for water to clear...no fish... clearly I killed them all...and then one by one over the next half an hour they flick out from behind the rocks looking a little bit too smug for my liking..."lets make him stressed; see how he likes it"

My question by the way is, how often do people with a big load of rocks go in behind and under everything with a gravel vac...every weeK ? less frequently ? more frequently ? Do people take 'em all out and put them back in on a regular basis to clean the tank ?

Also, aside from the unattractive look of a lot of fish doo doo, should the bacteria in a mature tank take care of it biologically - i.e. is this just an aesthetic issue when a tank is mature ?
 
I clean around them at every water change and under about every other one. But with RUGF, not much need to.

Why nis your tank so cloudy because of the water change/vac? Sounds like you need to do it more often. :confused:
 
thanks bob - that may be so. Today was in fact the first time I ever gravel vacced (new to all of this) :)

I think I should look at my layout again and see if I can't make it a bit more breakdownable.

Can I also ask, I was told by someone else that substrate should be as thin as possible - maybe an inch under my rocks and a few mm otherwise. I have about an inch and a half to two inches accross the board - too much ?
 
If you're trying to grow plants you'll want enough for roots to grow, I'd say 2-3 inches... I don't imagine there are hard and fast rules about substrate. It sounds to me like you have enough, but then I'm a rather wet behind the ears hobbyist. My fish are still alive, so I'm doing something right :)
 
With no plants you might want to thin your substrate out a little more. A deep substrate is harder to clean and can harbor anerobic bacteria which can lead to pockets of deadly gas. I go with about an inch or less with no plants. Much easier to clean.

Cloudy water after a water change is'nt too uncommon, so long as you're cleaning your gravel and changing enough water often enough (30 percent a week is pretty good, more with higher bioload fish) then the cloud is usually just extra fine debris and fine bubbles suspended briefly in the water.

Don't fret with all this new stuff. You're asking good questions and learning as you go.
 
Cloudy water after a water change and vac, should be uncommon.

If you have it, it is of two reasons...not frequent enough vac'ing and insufficeint filtration of fine particles.

I run deep gravel on all RUGF set ups.
 
I think a combination of the two here.

I'm using the Juwel internal filter together with another internal with the brand name of 'magi jet'. Funny enough, I havn't seen this name mentioned much anywhere :) It's rated 1000lph and makes far too much noise, so I'm going to change it - i don't think it and the Juwel internal are doing the biz as regards fine particles.

I don't have room for an external filter - I was looking at a fluval 4 online...good choice ?
 
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