View Full Version : Newbie question about heavily planted tanks
JasonR
04-18-2008, 7:58 PM
Ive seen pictures on here of tanks with plants that cover almost all of the substrate. Does this remove the need to gravel vac? I cant imagine pulling all of those up to vac it.
pcnicholson
04-18-2008, 8:08 PM
If you have ground cover plants you can skip those areas where you would have to uproot. Just wave the siphon over the plants to stir up the loose debris.
JasonR
04-18-2008, 8:11 PM
Ahh ok now that makes sense. The plants keep it from getting into the gravel in the first place. Not sure why I didnt think of that before :help:. Thanks.
the plants dont really keep it from getting into the gravel.. its just that the plants will eventually break down the waste as "food". But as said before its good to pass over the plants with a gravel vac sucking up any other bad stuff, fish poop/dead plants. Also if the tank is mature and plants been there for a while it will be hard to uproot them.
derekp
04-19-2008, 12:53 PM
I do that as well with my ground cover of baby tears. It is crawling with cherry shrimp. If you have shrimp or something small like that you might want to put something over the end of the siphon. I use panty hose myself, it works well.
tanker
04-19-2008, 1:10 PM
I have lots of ground cover. Almost cannot see gravel. I made a better DIY gravel vac.
One end (the one that goes into tank) is 1/2inch--so narrow and goes to gravel and tight places.
^^^
The tubing that came with my gravel vac is 1/2" so, I just pulled the larger tube off the end.