Do you really need to vacuum your tank?

So last night I was in the middle of vacuuming out one of my tanks and thought to myself is this really needed? I tank water was very clear and the fish seems fine and the water parameters with on spot. So I’m wonder how often does someone need to vacuum each tank? I find that simply just easier to do a water change and removing the surface water over vacuuming the gravel to get it out, what do you guys think?

 

I guess only when theres a load of poop and it looks bad?

 

I wouldn't say vaccuming isn't needed but it's a very good way to keep your tank cleaner because what you are removing is essentially plant matter, excess food and waste and that will contribute to overall higher nitrates/other things. Now saying this I don't vacuum myself because there isn't much you can vaccum in a planted tank without ripping plants off. You can be successful either way

 

With gravel you should do sections at a time to avoid all the waste from building up between the cracks.. all my tanks are sand so everything is on the surface of the sand but their also heavily planted so I always put my vac in one corner then take a turkey baster to congregate it all towards the vac. Hope that helps and makes some sense.

 

I do a surface vac in my 4 tanks every Saturday. All my tanks are heavily planted. In my biggest tank I have 7 plecos, and I swear someone in the middle of the night feeds them ( fish food ex-lax ) I do 75% WC, 4-5 hours with the 4 tanks from start to finish

 

IMO, sand substrate requires a weekly "hover" vac. A 3" & deeper gravel bed rarely needs vacuuming as long as careful feeding and a weekly 50% WC are done. I can't remember the last time I did a deep gravel substrate cleaning.

 

I wouldn't say vaccuming isn't needed but it's a very good way to keep your tank cleaner because what you are removing is essentially plant matter, excess food and waste and that will contribute to overall higher nitrates/other things. Now saying this I don't vacuum myself because there isn't much you can vaccum in a planted tank without ripping plants off. You can be successful either way

Okay that’s kinda what I was expecting, in my planted tanks, I just vacuum the gravel that’s not around plants and then where the dense plants r I just go around the edge and leave that’s in the plants there. But now after reading this I’m thinking about maybe cleaning my tanks every 2 weeks or and vacuuming out one half every time. Does that sound good? The each half would get vacuumed once a month.

With gravel you should do sections at a time to avoid all the waste from building up between the cracks.. all my tanks are sand so everything is on the surface of the sand but their also heavily planted so I always put my vac in one corner then take a turkey baster to congregate it all towards the vac. Hope that helps and makes some sense.

Lol, yeah I just have gravel in all my tanks, plants or not I have always just used gravel for some reason, but I was just Ik the habit of when I clean my tanks I just take that 20% using a vacuum on the bottom and just thought that maybe doing that was pointless, maybe I should just do it every month or so.

IMO, sand substrate requires a weekly "hover" vac. A 3" & deeper gravel bed rarely needs vacuuming as long as careful feeding and a weekly 50% WC are done. I can't remember the last time I did a deep gravel substrate cleaning.

Heck, that seems like a load of work to do a 50% water change. I normally just do a vacuumed 20% every 2 weeks.

 

My tanks have a very large bio load. A 50% WC is a minimum. Lol.

 

My tanks have a very large bio load. A 50% WC is a minimum. Lol.

I would give up

 

Hauling 5 gal. buckets help keep me in shape. I water flowers & trees with it.

 

Hauling 5 gal. buckets help keep me in shape. I water flowers & trees with it.

Lol, same. I am 5’2” so no matter how much water it is it will always be a workout for me.

 

In my opinion it depends on the concept you go by and the substrate you use. I got sand substrate and leaflitter all about, so I only hover over 2-3 spots when doing the weekly waterchange. That's it.

 

My tanks have a very large bio load. A 50% WC is a minimum. Lol.

Whenever I water change (I do 50%) I just hover and it seems like I have the poopiest fish ever. I turn the filter off when feeding so it doesnt go all over too. Does my 2 1/2 in Pleco and 4 nerites really do that much? It seems really bad where the pleco hangs out most.

 

Excess organic waste is a major contributor to disease.

 

Honestly, I prefer to vacuum the bottom of my tank, especially when you have food that floats to the bottom or plants. It just really helps keep stuff that floats to the bottom from dirtying up the tank, and its probably one of the reasons your tank is doing so well.

 

I do weekly 50% water changes and I’ll stir up the waste on bottom and occasionally do a shallow vacuum of the gravel in the accessible (non planted) areas if that makes sense.

 

I just vacuum the surface of the sand every change because so much stuff (mainly algae) gathers there. I do a 50% water change every 1.5 weeks and my tank has like a 43% stocking level (1 Betta and snail in a 10 gal) and according to AqAdvisor I can do 5% PWCs a week lol. Well I can easily do 50% so that's what I'll do.