Well, in the process of preparing for the first science competition of the year I procrastinated working on my tanks. Somehow the 5g still looks clean, just some alge on the decor and sides of the tank. The 10g however was just terrible. So I added a little extra work. I took out the decor, and gravel. The tank turned into a brown mess of waste. Let the filter get some of the stuff, the rest settled to the bottom. Did a water change, and was able to suck up all of the waste and stuff. I am going to do another wc tomorrow to get the stuff I see on the bottom up. Should I put in new gravel, rinse the old gravel and put it back in, switch to a different substrate, or attempt a ugf (probably reverse ugf)? I think this will be my main tank for quite some time. It is not in a place where I can just make a mess while cleaning it. I think part of my problem was my gravel may have been too thick. There was always stuff that I was missing (so the testing for ammo, nitrites, and nitrates kept reading a bit high indicating that the tank wasnt cycled) I think the tank is probably cycled by now and it is just my fault for it getting so dirty. But this leads me to wondering if I need more filtration.I feed the fish in this tank every other day the same as what I feed my 5g every day. In the same amount of time the tank gets about twice as dirty as my 5g. Right now I have a tetra pf10 filter. Any ideas on upgrading for say $25 or less? (unless it involves ugf which would cost more)