Worried about gravel cleaning with small fish in tank

Is this your planted tank or another one? If it's planted, there is no reason to gravel vac. That fish marm and leftover food is fertilizer for the plants! I know it sounds foreign, but seriously it's one of the best parts about having a planted tank. Kiss that gravel vac goodbye! (Okay, don't kiss it... That would be pretty nasty.)


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I agree on not cleaning the substrate with plants. Provided you don't overfeed of course.

Corys eat from the substrate, or from surfaces like plant leaves which they will browse, but they tend not to bother with sunken flake foods. Sinking tabs/disks/pellets are OK, just not too many. Having some of the small snails like Malaysian Livebearing or even pond snails would help keep the substrate clean.

To your initial question on small fish, sometimes they do venture up into the tube, so keep an eye on it as you siphon out the water. Usually the fish are able to swim out against the water flow, but I have had fish get caught once or twice. Fish are naturally curious when they see particulate matter swirling about, hoping for food, so they will usually investigate.

Byron.

I agree with them, but if you ever find yourself needing to vacuum, you can keep your other hand on the hose so you can kink it and stop the flow if something starts getting sucked in

Evanleigh said:

Thanks for the advice! Oh one more question that you reminded me of Byron...Do amano or cherry shrimp clean substrate as well as snails?

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Yes and no. Shrimp will not eat fish waste, as far as I know (if someone corrects me, no problem), but they do eat algae. Snails eat everything organic, including all fish excrement, and this breaks it down into smaller bits so the various bacteria can get working on it faster. Snails also eat algae, but so slowly it doesn't really make much of an impact.

Judging from your pic my first impression is you should keep up with the gravel vacs. You have a sparsely planted tank and the bottom will get kinda cruddy looking if you just do water only changes. My tanks are so heavily planted that my gravel vac will not reach the bottom without brushing against or crushing leaves and stems of the plants. I still give it a gentle vacuuming, and I do on rare occasion suck up an unwary otocinclus or other critter. Almost always they survive the trip up the tubing and I net them out of the water change bucket and back into the tank.
On the other hand with your intricate rockscaping the vac will mix up the gravels and mar that artistic look you have created.
So with that in mind, I would go with a very gentle gravel vac with larger than normal water changes.

A quick way to clean the glass (if it's glass... DO NOT DO THIS ON ACRYLIC) is to use a paint scraper razor blade. You don't need the scraper itself, just buy the inexpensive replacement razor blades at any hardware or dollar store hardware section. You will need something else to clean the silicone corners, but the glass surface cleaning will go really quickly if you use a good old fashioned razor blade. It also makes the algae come off in a "sheet" that you can either suck up with a vinyl hose when you do your water change or watch the fish, shrimp, and snails feast upon it.

While you are at the hardware store get them to cut you a section of vinyl hose and use it to suck up messes you make rather than using a gravel vac. Start a siphon and go for it! You can also just remove the big tube of the gravel vac and use the hose that leads out of it. It's much smaller and moves the same amount of water and debris. Gravel vacs can only move as much water and debris as will fit in the hose anyway... they just look fancy with that big opening and offer a larger sucking opening. Little stuff will suck right up into the vinyl hose just as well and disturb less.