steve wrote:
Ozdude wrote:



I am shocked at how filthy my gravel was and I can't begin to stress

how

important it is you get a really good gravel cleaner that suits your

tank. I

was using a cleaner suitable for a small tank and when I bought the

new 22"

one I'd say it sucked up 400% more junk on it's first use that the

little

one just wasn't able to pull up out of the substrate.



If this is true, don't you think people who use soil or even mammal
dung in their tank substrate would have massive water quality problems?
A large portion of the planted tank keepers do no deep gravel vac'ing
at all.

I always found that using sand prevented any build-up of waste. Also,
with large gravel, fish food always makes its way in between the stones
before it's eaten. All my aquariums have a top layer of sand. One has a
bottom layer of Fluorite, a top layer of sand and then a light
sprinkling of pea gravel. There's really no point in vacuuming unless
there's an unsightly collection of fish poops. The drawback with sand is
that the muck will build up in the filter, if it's powerful enough to
draw it in.

Nikki