gravel vacing planted tanks?

As a general rule there is little or no vaccuming done in planted tanks. At most Folks just skim the mulm off the top so it isn't visible.
Dave

What he said

Also, try to shy away from the blue gravel. Especially in a planted tank. I think the majority of us that started with an un-natural colored gravel were disappointed and found ourselves in the middle of a big project of changing to a natural color which is not an easy job once the tank is established!

Lol...something I just did today in fact....lol...though the smooth stones I took out of the 5 gallon were natural enough looking....but they look terrible when they get all dusty with "mulm". So I took them out, along with the flourite I had underneath them and replaced all that with peat moss underneath Echo-Complete. Quite a job, but I have it all done...just wish I had some real driftwood to put in there instead of the fake log looking thing that I settled for for now. It looks real enough I suppose...but I'd rather have honest to goodness wood...lol...something to look forward to..

when I first set up my planted 55 I had red gravel in it. When I bought it I though it was dark red, but in the water and under the PC lights it was bright. I thought it looked good anyway.........for a month or so. THen I had to go through the hassle of changing it. SHeesh, what a job on a planted tank. Never again!

Watch out guys I had a big buildup of mulm over two years in my flourite causeing my ph to crash hard killed lots of fish
I now use a 1" siphon hose during water changes and vac out the substrate around the plants rinse it and re add it.
I do this in small sections so that all will get done once a year.

I used onyx sand in my 10g growout tank. It wasn't as dark as I expected it to be. In the bag it looked black enough but in the tank it is a medium(ish) gray color. I would not mix it with blue gravel as it will look a total washout. There's no fish in that tank so I don't do any gravel vacing but when I mess around with plants it does tend to stir up cloudy particles really easy. However I would recommend it as a good substrate for your plants.