stupid question about gravel vacuuming

You are probably over maintaining your tank unless it is a very small one. Weekly water changes and vaccuming is probably why you are having ammonia problems.
How big Is your tank? How many Fish and what size? What type of filteration? Do you use a water conditioner in the new water? Water conditioner removes chloramine from tap water. Note: chloramine does not evaporate from water over time. Most minicipalities use chloramine (Chlorine and ammonia) to stearilize city or town water these days.
The ammonia problem is the worst thing that can happen short of a broken tank. It will kill your fish.
Over maintaining a tank upsets the UGF biological filter development in the gravel. Chloramine kills the bacteria and will harm the fish. the bacteria removes the ammonia by converting it to nitrite and then to nitrate. Nitrate is of course good for your plants.
 
Weekly water changes and vacuuming (of non-planted tanks) is NOT too much. That is a totally false and detrimenal myth that need to be put to rest permanently. Routine and thourogh vacuuming of UG/RFUG guarantees that the bacteria required will stay where they belong - on the gravel - and not be forced by suffocation to migrate into the mulm, where they would be subject to removal by infrequently done vacuuming. That is the sort of thing that ruins the reputation of UG/RFUG filters, through blind ignorance of how they should be maintained.

BTW, daily water changes are not too much either, but not many folks other than breeders do such.
 
How thorough is thorough? If a RFUGF gravel bed is 2" deep, how deep should the average disturbance depth be? I currently go down about 1/2" to 3/4" deep.
 
Originally posted by Matak
How thorough is thorough? If a RFUGF gravel bed is 2" deep, how deep should the average disturbance depth be? I currently go down about 1/2" to 3/4" deep.
Click to expand...

On my regular UGF I go until I reach the UGF itself. Every water change (which is 3-4 times a month, I wind up missing about every 3rd or forth week... I either forget or have too much going on to get to it when I remember)...

I notice that by bottoming out the gravel vac. and holding it down for a second I also suck up a bunch of extra crap that comes from underneath my UGF... I can prove it because I can get underneath my tank stand and shine a flash light up and see it's clearer afterwards (like brand new) vs. 2 weeks of no vacumming when I see a slight haze / muck developing... I would love to see it after 4 weeks... but I'm not that brave ;)

Because I vacumm so 'heavily' I only cover about 3/4 of the tank when I do a 25% water change... So I alternante sides, this week I'll work left to right, next week right to left...

When I miss a change, I'll do 30% the next week and wind up getting it all... I just hate lugging that 1 extra bucket outside ;)
 
I agree with Prometheus. When you vacuum, vacuum - full depth, and if possible full tank. If you cannot do full tank, mark mentally or physically where you stopped and catch it next time; but what you do, do fully.

All my UGs are RFUG now, and vacuuming is so much easier there, as all the debris is in the prefilter, basically nothing under the plates and almost nothing in the gravel. It is no hassle to cover the tank. The prefilter rinse (tap water is fine - no biofiltration is required for the prefilter) dumps the dirt.
 
RTR, do you vacuum your non-ugf planted tanks? Assuming you have any. I never touch the gravel in my planted tanks unless I'm doing some major rearranging or maintenance. Of course, I very rarely disturb/move my 'rooted' plants(rubin sword, crypts) so their root systems are very well developed and when looked at from under the tank, through the bottom glass, they practically span the entire tank floor.
 
Plants and cleaning

I do not vacuum the gravel at all in my planted tanks.

I wave my fingers over the gravel to fluff up any loose stuff and then siphon it away.

When you buy potted plants, jut pick off all the rock wool that is in the roots, plant them bare-rooted.

I strongly suggest rooted plants, much less work to maintain them compared to stem plants.
 
I fully vacuum all my planted tanks fully every two to three weeks and then replant. My plants are healthy & vigorous. this gets rid of any dead roots, plant matter etc.... The fish of course go after all the stuff that flies up, but i am very careful with the Python and if I think I have gotten a fish, I have my finger on the shutoff valve and can react very quicky. I have not lost one yet! ;). I have gotten a few, but shut it off before they get in the hose part of the Python.....
 
My non-UGF planted tanks are handled pretty much as anonapersona detailed. A mature substrate is quite valuable to rooted plants; unneeded disturbance is counter-productive. The biochemistry of an undistrurbed substrate is highly beneficial to rooted plants and is in part controlled by them.

That said, I do follow Karen Randall's suggestion of periodic cleaning of the substrate, every 1-3 years depending on the plants growing in a particular area, to thin over-crowded plant stand and to remove excess organics building up. My conventional planted tanks, like all my tanks, are set for 10-year projected lifespan, so some substrate work is needed periodically. I don't yet have any feeling for the lifespan of RFUG planted tanks, but my handling will be similar to the conventional setups. I recently cleared some overgrown areas in the first RFUG trial tank, and I did deep vacuum before replanting - so other than substrate fertilization (not done for RFUG), I'm handling those like my conventional planted tanks.

HTH
 
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