Gravel cleaning of planted tanks - easier way?

[henward]

man

im new to planted tanks

im finding that with normal non planted tanks - i just syphone the gravel wiht out a care in the world.

but with planted, i have to take ages making sure plants dont get uprooted.

and wha ti find is that pieces of food that usually gets picked up by the filter and flies with the current, gets stuck in the plants and under them.

is there any easier way to clean the gravel or is this just something you have to deal with?

[PuffaDragon]

never used to clean gravel in my planted tank it was heavily planted so i would just vacuum the plants and grasses the plants use much of the waste

[Caryl]

It will get easier once the roots are more established. I do not vacuum too closely to plant bases.

[alanmin4304]

I have heavily planted tanks with sand and I just remove any excess mulm sitting on top of the sand that builds up. It is good food for the plants and wont be a problem unless you are overfeeding. Mrs Nature is far too busy to vacuum waterways in nature.

[David R]

Mrs Nature is far too busy to vacuum waterways in nature.

Yes but Mr Nature doing a constant 100% water change does help.

[PuffaDragon]

good call david

[whetu]

As others have said, it will get easier once plants are established. Just vacuum the areas that need it - above the gravel in open areas (you don't need to dig right down to the roots) and above the actual plants if you're finding stuff gets caught in the leaves.

I suspect if too much stuff is getting caught in the plants it's possible you're feeding too much. My fish spend the next 30 mins or so after they're fed looking carefully through the plants to find any food they have missed! :lol:

It's also possible that the stuff in the plants is something like bristlenose poo - the bane of my existence. :roll: They chew on the wood and leave lovely woody doo-doo all over the tank. Won't hurt anything (in fact it probably makes lovely compost for the plants) but I can never get the tank looking really clean, so I try not to stress about it.

[henward]

ithought there was an easy way

but thats ok

i just take the scraps and poo from the plant bases, i never dig in around the plants. i swirl my syphon n circles and thisbrings them up.

but takes longer, its ok

[spoon]

gravel is a lot easier than sand

[Jaide]

Or get plants that can grow on logs - then you can take the whole log out when gravel cleaning