Dirty tanks

I'm curious about your cleaning routines. What do you all do with your
large tanks, with large fish, that tend to get very dirty quickly? Big fish
require more food, create more waste, and stir up the bottom more. Do you
simply do a major cleaning as often as once a week?

--
JK Sinrod NY
Sinrod Stained Glass
www.sinrodstudios.com
Coney Island Memories
www.sinrodstudios.com/coneymemories

Maybe you shoudl classify large aquaria. In normal people circles I am crazy
for having a 90 gallon tank. In fish circles I feel like a poser because I
only have 1 tank. :~) There is an aquarium society that meets right down the
street from me and I do not go to their meetings because I feel like a poser
with only one tank lol.

as far as cleaning it though... I previously had a very large texas cichlid,
an african orange sided pike cichlid and a big ass pleco in it. So we are
looking at 3 fish over a foot long and who are messy.I ran a ugf powered by
300 gph powerheads as well as 2 magnum 350 canister filters with one of them
hooked up to a bio wheel 60. My tank has a full oak canopy and a ghetto hood
I made myself to just get buy so it is impossible to clean without taking
all of that out which is a serious pain so I did this to lessen the amount I
would have ot monkey with it: My powerheads on my ugf let me reverse the
flow of the so I would do that for a week - 3 weeks which woudl push all the
gunk out of the rocks in my subsrate. This also meant detrius did not settle
to the bottom and everything ended up in the caniter filters eventually
which I could change without taking apart anything on my tank. Only downside
to this was that I had detrius suspended in the tank regularly, not
unnatractive but not crystal clear either. When company was expected I would
undo the reverse flow on my ugf and make the powerhead work the "normal"
way. This sucked all suspended detrius back into the gravel within a hour
and the water went back to crystal.

I now have an african set up in there with the same filtration... just
started doing the reverse flow thing as they have all grown to adulthood and
being messy now. tank has only been set up about a year and I got them all
when they were under and inch so no need for serious maintenance till
recently.


"jk" wrote in message
t...
I'm curious about your cleaning routines. What do you all do with your
large tanks, with large fish, that tend to get very dirty quickly? Big
fish
require more food, create more waste, and stir up the bottom more. Do you
simply do a major cleaning as often as once a week?

--
JK Sinrod NY
Sinrod Stained Glass
www.sinrodstudios.com
Coney Island Memories
www.sinrodstudios.com/coneymemories

"jk" wrote in message
t...
I'm curious about your cleaning routines. What do you all do with
your
large tanks, with large fish, that tend to get very dirty quickly? Big
fish
require more food, create more waste, and stir up the bottom more. Do
you
simply do a major cleaning as often as once a week?

--
JK Sinrod NY

Arrange your filtration so that you have more pick-up power.
Powerfilters are good for this because they typically run about 5x the
tank volume. Add an extension to the intake pipe to get it lower into
deep tanks. Sand substrate can be useful. Arrange the sand and
filtration inlet/outlet so any detritus slides from the back of the tank
to the front, and then along the front to one side (where the intake is
located). Bare bottom tanks also work. You best solution will probably
be a combination of filters, such as canister -or- powerfilter (for good
intake) and a powerhead -or- canister (to direct horizontal currents).

Another method is piping your filter system inlet (typically a canister)
to UGF plates and covering the plates with medium-large river stones.
Any detritus will fall through the river stones and into your filter.
This system is application specific, as it does not work with bottom
feeders well, however it does work with large fish whose food does not
reach the substrate often. It also eliminates the need to gravel vacuum,
and if you add a T valve at the canister intake, you have a convenient
'bib' to drain water for your weekly water changes. With a couple of
valves, you can fix it so that your water changes backwash the filter,
reducing your filter maintenance, and more efficiently getting rid of
unwanted DOCs piling up in your filter media. If you want to be more
certain that uneaten food is not getting 'vacuumed' then shut the filter
off while feeding. I have one of my tanks on this type of a system and I
use a timer which holds my filters off for 5 minutes.

hth
NetMax

I haven't tried this myself, but the idea seems to be ideal for a situation
like yours. Check out the link below regarding "Under-gravel jets". I plan
to try it on my 100 gallon eventually once I get rid of the fry I'm gorwing
out in there.


"jk" wrote in message
t...
I'm curious about your cleaning routines. What do you all do with your
large tanks, with large fish, that tend to get very dirty quickly? Big
fish
require more food, create more waste, and stir up the bottom more. Do you
simply do a major cleaning as often as once a week?

--
JK Sinrod NY
Sinrod Stained Glass
www.sinrodstudios.com
Coney Island Memories
www.sinrodstudios.com/coneymemories

You spend large amounts of money on high output Power Filters


"jk" wrote in message news:JPEob.38474 I'm curious
about your cleaning routines. What do you all do with your
large tanks, with large fish, that tend to get very dirty quickly? Big
fish
require more food, create more waste, and stir up the bottom more. Do you
simply do a major cleaning as often as once a week?

--
JK Sinrod NY
Sinrod Stained Glass
www.sinrodstudios.com
Coney Island Memories
www.sinrodstudios.com/coneymemories

"NetMax" wrote in message
. ..

"jk" wrote in message
t...
I'm curious about your cleaning routines. What do you all do with
your
large tanks, with large fish, that tend to get very dirty quickly? Big
fish
require more food, create more waste, and stir up the bottom more. Do
you
simply do a major cleaning as often as once a week?

--
JK Sinrod NY

Arrange your filtration so that you have more pick-up power.
Powerfilters are good for this because they typically run about 5x the
tank volume. Add an extension to the intake pipe to get it lower into
deep tanks. Sand substrate can be useful. Arrange the sand and
filtration inlet/outlet so any detritus slides from the back of the tank
to the front, and then along the front to one side (where the intake is
located). Bare bottom tanks also work. You best solution will probably
be a combination of filters, such as canister -or- powerfilter (for good
intake) and a powerhead -or- canister (to direct horizontal currents).

Another method is piping your filter system inlet (typically a canister)
to UGF plates and covering the plates with medium-large river stones.
Any detritus will fall through the river stones and into your filter.
This system is application specific, as it does not work with bottom
feeders well, however it does work with large fish whose food does not
reach the substrate often. It also eliminates the need to gravel vacuum,
and if you add a T valve at the canister intake, you have a convenient
'bib' to drain water for your weekly water changes. With a couple of
valves, you can fix it so that your water changes backwash the filter,
reducing your filter maintenance, and more efficiently getting rid of
unwanted DOCs piling up in your filter media. If you want to be more
certain that uneaten food is not getting 'vacuumed' then shut the filter
off while feeding. I have one of my tanks on this type of a system and I
use a timer which holds my filters off for 5 minutes.

that timer is a good idea max. I tend to feed my fish while I'm racing out
the door to go to work, I turn off the filter while I feed. 3 times in 2
months I have gone out all day with the filter off!!

"Mr Paul Goodhew" wrote in message
...

"NetMax" wrote in message
. ..

"jk" wrote in message
t...
I'm curious about your cleaning routines. What do you all do
with
your
large tanks, with large fish, that tend to get very dirty quickly?
Big
fish
require more food, create more waste, and stir up the bottom more.
Do
you
simply do a major cleaning as often as once a week?

--
JK Sinrod NY

Arrange your filtration so that you have more pick-up power.
Powerfilters are good for this because they typically run about 5x
the
tank volume. Add an extension to the intake pipe to get it lower
into
deep tanks. Sand substrate can be useful. Arrange the sand and
filtration inlet/outlet so any detritus slides from the back of the
tank
to the front, and then along the front to one side (where the intake
is
located). Bare bottom tanks also work. You best solution will
probably
be a combination of filters, such as canister -or- powerfilter (for
good
intake) and a powerhead -or- canister (to direct horizontal
currents).

Another method is piping your filter system inlet (typically a
canister)
to UGF plates and covering the plates with medium-large river stones.
Any detritus will fall through the river stones and into your filter.
This system is application specific, as it does not work with bottom
feeders well, however it does work with large fish whose food does
not
reach the substrate often. It also eliminates the need to gravel
vacuum,
and if you add a T valve at the canister intake, you have a
convenient
'bib' to drain water for your weekly water changes. With a couple of
valves, you can fix it so that your water changes backwash the
filter,
reducing your filter maintenance, and more efficiently getting rid of
unwanted DOCs piling up in your filter media. If you want to be more
certain that uneaten food is not getting 'vacuumed' then shut the
filter
off while feeding. I have one of my tanks on this type of a system
and I
use a timer which holds my filters off for 5 minutes.

that timer is a good idea max. I tend to feed my fish while I'm racing
out
the door to go to work, I turn off the filter while I feed. 3 times in
2
months I have gone out all day with the filter off!!

If memory serves, you need a timer with double throw relay, usually
marked as a SPDT or DPDT. Timers usually turn something ON for a set
time. As you want the reverse, you need to take your power from the
relay contact which is normally ON, so the timer turns something OFF for
the set time.

I shopped around for such a timer and couldn't find it, but the hardware
available here is limited. I probably could have found it in some
on-line catalogue, but instead, I went into an industrial supply store
and bought a DPDT 120Vac relay and connected the relay driver coil
contacts to the output of the timer. I then connected my house current
to the relay, so the relay output is always ON, except for the time I set
the timer. It's essentially a negative logic relay ;~). I then put the
relay into a standard electrical box near my aquarium set-up. It's a
very simple construction, but I'm leery of giving electrical advice over
the newsgroup. Don't attempt this unless you are qualified.
hth
NetMax

HAHA max..you said to arrange the sand..... I tried that once...about 15
minutes later my male afra decided that he needed a hole the size of a
basketball right inthe middle. So muhc for that.


Rich