best way to grav vac?

acocacolagirl

acocacolagirl

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Dec 2, 2004
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HI. So I've been doing this fish thing for about 1 1/2 years. And I just discovered that maybe I am doing my grav vacuuming wrong. Normally, I do a gentle vac, sucking up just a few of the very top, lightweight rocks. But tonight when I was cleaning the tank, I tried to use the end of the vac to push a decoration back into the gravel. So the end went deep in the gravel and up came a cloud of dirty water. Am I supposed to push it into the gravel and suck all of that up, or is that my good bacteria being sucked up? Thanks for your advice.
:dive2:
 
I usually poke the gravel vac to the bottom to get a lot of that junk out of there. You will be removing some of the beneficial bacteria, however if you have tank decorations or plants you'll probably just work around them lightly. This will save enough bacteria to keep your tank balanced. More importantly you will be getting poop, uneaten food, decaying plant matter, and all things undesirable from the substrate.

One of the best systems I've found is the Marineland Magnum HOT with the vacuum attachment. It vacuums the tank and filters the water from the vacuum and then returns it to the tank. There's no time limit on the vacuuming as you're not draining any water. I'll do a 25% water change after that.
 
Yup as partsrep said, push the vacuum right into your substrate and get all the muck out of it. Don't worry about removing bacteria, even if you vac your entire floor you wont remove enough bacteria to cause a problem, they adhere to the substrate very well. It's also a good idea to move rocks, ornaments, driftwood etc. and vacuum underneath them occasionally.
 
I always vaccum the gravel and get a puff of cloudy water, but like the others said, you are removing all of the waste out of the tank and you aren't removing enough beneficial bacteria to hurt your tank.
 
Wow. Thanks for all of the input! I had no idea I wasn't get my tank "clean" all of this time. Gald to know how to do a better job. And that Marineland Magnum sounds great. I will definately look into it when I have some extra cash on hand!
 
Why is it that everytime I vacuum my gravel that there isn't a cloudy puff? Is this abnormal? What should I do? I have one of those Mini Gravel Vacs from Wal Mart. I am going to buy a new one tomorrow at PetsMart.
 
luvmytanks10 said:
Why is it that everytime I vacuum my gravel that there isn't a cloudy puff? Is this abnormal? What should I do? I have one of those Mini Gravel Vacs from Wal Mart. I am going to buy a new one tomorrow at PetsMart.
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when you dont have a UGF, you wolnt get as much stuff
 
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