Beautiful tanks! I love the planted tanks. I just started a 5 gallon planted and I hope to get it to look really nice.
Thanks for the compliments as well . My mbuna tank does have a sand bottom and I clean it once a week but gentle running the hose over the sand. The vacuum just picks up the dirt and debris but the sand is heavy enough to not get sucked up. I also have malaysian trumpet snails that come out at night and do a magnificent job of cleaning.
This is my 55 gallon of right now, still needs work but its coming alon. I think i will add some of that black water stuff to see how it looks with that.