Cleaning Live-Planted Tank Questions?
by Aquaboy on Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 | 2 Comments
I’m thinking of starting up a freshwater amano-style (ADA) natural planted aquarium. I’ve never owned a live-planted setup and I know I have to get an intense light and co2 (plus ferts). All I’ve every owned were fish-only tanks with regular gravel…
My QUESTION is, with a planted tank with (soil-like) substrate and live plants, how are tanks like this maintained? Changing out the water is one thing, but if you keep fish in there how are you suppose to gravel-vac their poop and wasted food? I’m assuming the substrate will be too lite and easily be stirred up and make a mess of things… what are the steps and techniques involved in maintaining a tank like that?
10 points to the best answer!
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I’ve had my first planted tank up and running for about 6 months now. At first I was kind of afraid to vac the tank because like you said the substrate is really light. I used to skip cleanings a little too often and when I did them it made such a mess and clouded up the water.
Now through trial and error I’ve come to a good balance. I’ve cut down the fish population alot. Got some shrimp and flag fish ( my little living clean up crew ) and use a very small vac that has a low flow and fits between my plants easily. Also I clean it every week now and it’s so much easier than trying to tackle a months worth of waste.
Hope this helps. Best of luck. I am very proud of the results of my planted tank now and get more compliments on it than any of my other 9 tanks.
I just change the water. The shrimp, snails, and botias clean the substrate and I never gravel vac it.
The added maintenance is pruning! Once a week I trim back all the plants, remove decaying plant matter (leave that fell off), and clean the sponge off my powerheads to maintain flow (I have a 90 gallon tank and have two powerheads to agitate the surface more and one canister filter with a spray bar that circulates water to the bottom of the tank) . About once a month I rinse the canister filter media in tank temperature water to remove solid waste.
Every now and then when removing water I will hold the hose a few inches from the gravel and remove any detritus that is resting on top. Usually I do that only if I have moved a plant or planted something new as it stirs up the substrate.
I have a soil-like substrate with some small river rock scattering the top.