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How do you go about cleaning the gravel in a well planted tank, or do u just syphon off the muck from the top of the gravel??

Cheers

Paul

Hi Paul,

I have a large planted tank and I only very gently siphon the top of the gravel.
You should never stir up the gravel because plants hate fresh highly oxygenated water around their roots because it oxidises the nutrients and the plant starves. It will also allow nutrients out into the water and possibly encourage algae.


This is one my tanks which has been set up for two years now and is still thriving.

nice tank finnipper.

i'm thinking about setting up a small planted tank soon.

what substate have you got?
what lighting do you have?
and do you use CO2?

i'd imagine you don't want to get rid of too much of the detritus. it's free plant food after all!

Hi racoll,

All my equipment is made by Denerle.
The substrate is a mixture of duponit (which is like a lime free potting compost) mixed with an equal volume of silica sand for a depth of 1 to 2 inches. On top of that there is a 3 inch layer of quartz gravel 1 to 2 mm which is like a very coarse sand. The whole lot is on top of a 25W heater cable.

The lighting is by four 42 inch tubes 38W with reflectors. Three tubes are Trocal specialist plant tubes and one Triton tube to show the fish better.

CO2 is added through the day only (there is a night time shut off valve attached to the timer for the lighting) and it is added using a relatively simple formula which has served me well - KH(carbonate hardness) x vol in litres / divided by 40, the answer tells you how many bubbles of CO2 are needed per min.

The main down side to the tank is that it is high on maintenance requiring at least two prunings per week and a daily 10% water change.

You can find out more about the Denerle stuff from this site which is where I got all my stuff from.
http://www.newleafaquarium.com/dennerle.html

I think they will post equipment if it is to far for you to to travel to.

Andy

Finnipper,
Lovely tank! I've been a little overzealous in my gravel cleanings, since there's a lot of waste production. Maybe if I did 2 smaller water changes/gravel cleanings per week that are less intensive, I could acheive the same level of clean, but grow tender species. I was able to get a Radican Sword to reach the top of the 75 gal.tank and send out daughters. The Twisted Val, Cabomba and Ludwigia are doing well. Anything more tender than this doesn't survive.

Hi Bronze fry,

Like fish, plants have different requirements for temp, pH, GH ect. Some are very tolerant like the ones that you have listed and so will do well in aquaria more often than the more demanding ones.

I make small regular water changes to make sure that the important trace elements are replenished regularly or growth suffers.

If you have strong aeration or lots of surface turbulance it will drive off CO2 which is desirable for the fish particularly if they come from fast flowing streams which are very well oxygenated but it deprives plants of a major component needed for growth.

The tank in the photograph doesn't have any aeration or turbulance near the surface at all. But it has a very high level of disolved oxygen due to the plants and low stocking level.

If the plants that you have listed are all doing well there are a few more which I think will also thrive in your tank.

Anubias barteri nana
Hygrophilla polysperma
Hygrophilla deformis
Java fern
java moss

I have some Java Fern in another tank that will be ready to split in about another month or so. I haven't tried any of the Hygrophilla sp. yet. I believe I will try those this spring. I just got 2 very small pumps, rather than powerheads. I'm going to place these a bit lower in the tank, rather than near the top. These are smaller than the one powerhead, but still provide a current. Time will tell. And I'm going to be much more gentle with my cleanings! Thank you so much!!!!!