How much mulm?
- Thread starter steffish
- Start date
If you have plants, mulm is actually beneficial. Lacking them means you want as little as possible. It does help the water cycle and you should do a general vacuuming weekly. I personally don't recommend a thorough job of it unless I suspect something in the water.
I can never keep my mulm down no matter what I do and I probably have too much. I don't think you can have too little mulm though.
I'm not a fan of tons of mulm, I love my bottom feeders too much. They don't need to have their noses in a bunch of crap or stir it up looking for food. That said I'm not a fanatic vacuumer either but I don't want a pile of "stuff" anywhere.
I planted Dwarf Hairgrass and never vacuumed that area. After two years the grass was thriving on top of a 1/2" layer of mulm. It must have been beneficial, and never caused algae.
if the area is visible i try to keep it to a minimum....if the area is hidden by plants i do nothing to stop it from building up.
-chris
-chris
I was wondering, because I thought it might be like adding compost to your (terrestrial) garden. Adds nutrients & builds soil structure. But at the same time worried about encouraging algae growth. No bottom sifters to worry about. Also, what about toxic byproducts of decomposition building up in the substrate? Does that depend on substrate depth? Does flow through the substrate slowly reduce/become clogged or do the plants & bacteria take care of that by consumption?