Gravel Cleaning

I am in the habit of cleaning my goldfish tank weekly and wanted to stay on the same schedule with Gizmos 5 gallon tank. My question is about cleaning the gravel. I have two gravel cleaners but both are pretty large for cleaning the 20 gallon tank. I couldn't keep them on an angle and maneuver them are a small tank. What do most of you use to clean the gravel in your small tanks and do you leave your betta in the tank while you do it or relocate them to another place while your working in the tank?

Thanks,
Lisa

 

I use a minI gravel vac that I bought at Petsmart. They come in many sizes (minI works best for a small tank) and start at only a few dollars.
Here's a link to it:

 

I use a similar siphon vac for cleaning our gravel (ours came with an extension tube that slides out of the main tube). I don't think it cost more than $4. And, I don't move our Betta for cleaning the gravel or typical water changes. But, I do keep an eye on him so he doesn't get siphoned into the tube, nor hit by it when the vac is being moved around.

Mike

 

The betta may be curious or scared of the vacuum but as said above just keep an eye on him. Bettas get really freaked out by being moved and I only ever did so when I felt I had no choice. The danger in this unlike for some other fish are their long fins which can get damaged or caught in nets, or else become victI'm to finrot which is apparently partly caused by stress.

You should be fine just using one of the ones recommended above and watching your betta to make sure he doesn't get caught in the vacuum.

 

I use a cheap Wal-Mart gravel siphon vacuum for my 5 gallon. It was cheap and it does the trick.

 

Thanks All.....I'll be at PetSmart this Sat. with my local adoption group so I'll check there for the small gravel siphon. And if they don't have anything well I can always make another trip to "That Pet Place" in Lancaster. I went there yesterday to get cat food before this snow came in today, and of course I made a trip into the fish room. Bad, Bad move on my part. Last week when I was shopping for my betta buddy they had only a few in the store and yesterday? well the room was full of them. I couldn't help but look and sure enough there were some real beauties.

And on this snowy day I had nothing to do but surf the web and found that there is a betta club in Phila, PA. I followed their link and much to my surprise I found that the first weekend in May they are having a show and auction in Lancaster. I think I have to go and see what a Betta Show is like. I've been to dog, cat, and bird shows but fish will be a first for me.

Lisa

 

Sorry, if I'm being too nosey here, but do you live in NY state? I was born and raised in Williamsville, NY. I've only lived in Az for 5 yrs now. Natalie

 

HI Natalie, I don't live in New York, I live in Pennsylvania. The small town of Red Lion to be more exact. I'm about 30 or 40 minutes from Lancaster, PA. But today......I sure wish I lived in AZ, we had about three more inches of snow.

Lisa

 

I have the smaller phython gravel sphion but for the life of me can never get it started. The tank is on the kitchen counter and I put a bucket on the floor but I can not get it started. I than tried putting the bucket in the sink next to the tank but still no luck. Is there a secret to getting it started. I have followed the directions and sort of rocked it back and forth or up and down, which ever way you look at it but no luck. HELP.

LisaB

 

This vid will show you how to start the siphon for a gravel vacuum...but I don't know if Pythons are any different.

 

Yes Pythons work differently the suction is determined by the flow of the water coming from the water source. It can empty a small tank in seconds and is not recommended for small tanks.

Rose

 

To be honest we ( mum and I ) have given up trying to start the vac's off by manufacturers methods and just suck the tube and keep an quick eye out for water before it reaches our mouths!! one or two times I have been too slow!!! YAKKY!!!!!!

 

This vid will show you how to start the siphon for a gravel vacuum...but I don't know if Pythons are any different.

Thanks so much for the link to that video. I now know what I wasn't doing right, holding my finger over the end of the tube before filling the tube with water. How great to actually see it done. And that looks like the same gravel cleaner I have for the 5 gallon tank.

I think I'll have to check at this You Tube site.

LisaB

 

Ummm, no? One of the users HERE created that video just so people could see how to use their gravel vacuums...it has nothing to do with YouTube itself.

 

When doing a weekly water change do I need to clean the gravel and how deep.... I normally just skI'm the vacuum along the top because my lfs told me its bad to deep cleen the gravel

 

I used to skI'm the top and was constantly fighting high nitrates. When I started 'deep cleaning', pushing the gravel vac all the way down to the tank bottom my nitrates dropped to 5-10ppm.
I haven't seen any adverse affects, infact the water is probably cleaner and does not produce a cloud of gunk when the substrate gets disturbed.

 

That is probably y my tank water is always cloudy my dragon gobly loves to churn the gravel up on his hunt for food.... should I clean the whole tank or do half the gravel 1 week and the other half the next or just do the whole lot

 

I do half one week, half the next. This in theory should reduce the risk of destroying the bacterial bed in the gravel.
Others may have different techniques for you.

 

Welcome to fishlore ;D

If you have gravel, you should be pushing the syphon all the way into the gravel. Most members here vacuum about half the gravel during each water change. Personally, I vacuum all of the gravel (my only exception being that I don't gravel near my live plants), and don't see any problems with my cycle.

If you have sand, skimming the vac over the surface should get everything out

 

It is recommended 3/8's of an inch BUT I just gravel vac my whole tank deeply once a week with my 50% WC and use my eheim electric gravel vac just about daily.... I have no issue with my cycle...

 

Ok thank you every one ill be 'deep cleaning' every water change

 

Do you guys regularly gravel clean your aquascaped, planted aquariums?
Even doing a water change is hard with stuff falling over.
I wave my siphon around to agitate the surface of the gravel and suck up as much as possible but a deep clean is hard to do.

What do you guys do?

 

In my opinion, if you have gravel, you have to stick that syphon into the gravel. Not just agitate the surface. That method only works with sand. With gravel, all the debris sinks deep into the gravel and you must get your syphon deep in there to remove it. (this makes your dilemma even more complicated I'm sure!)

I only have one tank with gravel. The rest have sand. I do end up having to put things back into place after syphoning the tank with gravel. Stuff does get a little messed up in the process unfortunately. I am not sure there is a way to avoid that if you want to get the gunk out of your gravel. If you don't do deep vacuums with a gravel tank, it will cause problems with your water quality.

This is why I have chosen not to put live plants in my gravel tank. But I know there are people who have planted tanks with gravel. So I don't know exactly how they would do deep vacuums without disturbing the plants roots.

Hopefully someone else will chime in!

 

Is this a fairly newly planted tank? How deep is the substrate? Are the plants anchored at all?

The only plants that I see move are newly planted, and I avoid going too close to them for a few weeks. Once the plants have established a root system, they should hardly move at all. I typically do exactly as you would if you didn't have plants. Every other water change I deep clean 1/2 of the gravel.

 

Can't plant roots get chopped up while stabbing the siphon into the gravel?
I also saw a video on youtube where the guy claimed he had so many plants in his aquarium that his gravel was basically cleaned by his plants.
Is this even possible?

 

I guess they could, but it would take force. The siphon on my vac is more than enough to pull gravel in and agitate it. I use minimal downward pressure and have not seen any damage to plants or roots.

As far as plants consuming all waste, I guess it is possible, but I'd consider it far fetched... I have tons of plants, to the point where I am concerned about fish being able to swim if I don't do regular pruning. I still get a considerable amount of crud when I vac.

 

If I got an under gravel filter, would this problem be resolved?

 

No, not likely. I haven't used an under gravel filter in a very long time, but I do remember that vacuuming had to happen significantly more often. This is because they pull all debris, dirt, waste, etc down into the gravel and the gravel acts as your mechanical filter. A HOB or canister will instead pull the diet debris, waste upwards and away from the gravel.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is any way to avoid gravel vacuuming.

 

Cheers for the quick responses.

 

I have a 36 gal tank and I typically do a 10 gallon water change every 5 or 6 days....during each water change I literally "deep clean" half the tanks gravel. Then I will get the other half the next water change. It is amazing how much gunk I can clean out each week. Because of ease of cleaning, I no longer use plastic plants as they do make cleaning a pain. I have 2 albino bristlenose plecos and I noticed that they wouldnt clean the plants since they were so flimsy. I now only use actual ornaments and hard decors. The pleco will eat/clean these all day, plus they provide "caves" to hide in for my fish.

 

I have a 25 pound bag a gravel, and it's a big bag, a big big bag, A FAT FAT -carried away-

How do I clean it besides using a strainer? Can I just fill the bag with water and pour?

SO open the bag, pour water in, and dump water out.

 

No....strain it....bit by bit if you have to...otherwise you'll end up with a cloudy, dusty tank

 

No....strain it....bit by bit if you have to...otherwise you'll end up with a cloudy, dusty tank

Really? But my strainer is the same one for pasta, so and we put it in the dish washer, so chemicals will linger on the strainer

 

Yup. You're gonna have to rinse it like crazy. You can put some in a bucket and run water through it until the water runs clear, put it in another bucket and repeat. Sucks, its time consuming, water wasting and a bunch of work but its really the only way to not have it cloud up bad.

 

Use the strainer and run it through the dish washer. No worries.

 

Or buy a bigger one....especially for the job....or a rinse with your pasta one will be fine.....gotta be done though

 

Yup. You're gonna have to rinse it like crazy. You can put some in a bucket and run water through it until the water runs clear, put it in another bucket and repeat. Sucks, its time consuming, water wasting and a bunch of work but its really the only way to not have it cloud up bad.

Rinse the strainer or gravel? And u mean put the gravel in a bucket and fill it with water?

 

I used bagged gravel it took me hours and hours of rinsing before I was satisfied. Put gravel in a bucket constantly run the hose into the bucket at the same time use something to turn the gravel in the bucket (think of it like a washing machine the constant flow of fresh water along with the rotating action clears any dust ect ect from the gravel.. take the hose out drain the water and repeat until the water becomes clear.

I bought bagged gravel to save money, while I did save around £10 in money value over pre washed gravel. It was an awful lot of hard work, uses lots of water and your feet get soaked. It was hard graft for the sake of some gravel, however I did save £10 to spend on other fish related items.

Good Luck.

 

I used bagged gravel it took me hours and hours of rinsing before I was satisfied. Put gravel in a bucket constantly run the hose into the bucket at the same time use something to turn the gravel in the bucket (think of it like a washing machine the constant flow of fresh water along with the rotating action clears any dust ect ect from the gravel.. take the hose out drain the water and repeat until the water becomes clear.

I bought bagged gravel to save money, while I did save around £10 in money value over pre washed gravel. It was an awful lot of hard work, uses lots of water and your feet get soaked. It was hard graft for the sake of some gravel, however I did save £10 to spend on other fish related items.

Good Luck.

So, put gravel in bucket. Run water though it, use hand to kinda swish it around?

 

I used bagged gravel it took me hours and hours of rinsing before I was satisfied. Put gravel in a bucket constantly run the hose into the bucket at the same time use something to turn the gravel in the bucket (think of it like a washing machine the constant flow of fresh water along with the rotating action clears any dust ect ect from the gravel.. take the hose out drain the water and repeat until the water becomes clear.

I bought bagged gravel to save money, while I did save around £10 in money value over pre washed gravel. It was an awful lot of hard work, uses lots of water and your feet get soaked. It was hard graft for the sake of some gravel, however I did save £10 to spend on other fish related items.

Good Luck.

Yup. You're gonna have to rinse it like crazy. You can put some in a bucket and run water through it until the water runs clear, put it in another bucket and repeat. Sucks, its time consuming, water wasting and a bunch of work but its really the only way to not have it cloud up bad.

Wait a minuet! Put gravel in bucket, run water through it, and use something to churn the gravel?