Hi all,

Is it ok not to do gravel vacs on a planted tank as this would disturb plants, would the plants use the "detritus" as compost?

Another thought was to use a under gravel filter plates hooked up tho an external canister to draw water through the gravel and "suck out all the crap" into the filter, would this work?

Yes, it would work, but your plants wouldn't like it much. They don't really enjoy having much water movement over their roots, especially the amount a canister would produce. I have a planted tank, and I never gravel vac simply because there is not enough open gravel to vacuum. Your plants will use the detritus.

I siphon round my plants without them getting upset about it. The mini vallis even get the siphon totally over top of them. They do use the muck certainly but you still need to keep the levels of it down to a reasonable amount.

i also vacuum around my plants, some places are harder to reach so i either leave it or swish my hand to get the leaf litter etc out of that spot.

In my planted tanks I dont actually gravelvac any of it as the roots of your plants will be disturbed

I do though run a small hopse just over the top of the gravel to suck up any of the crap that is sitting on top of the gravel

Brad

oops- thats what i meant :oops: :lol:

my planted tank is sand so i just hover over the top to get any detrius, i dont actually dig into the sand itself.