Loaches Online Forum

Hello...

Please don't be in a hurry..., to answer this..., but I'm wondering how you clean a tank with so many plants. I have quite a few plants as well, and I'm hoping to add more (the planted tank is my absolute favourite, as long before I was into fish, I was crazy about gardening and plants, especially houseplants.)

I use a gravel siphon 1-2 times a week to clean the detrius off the bottom. I'm wondering how you would do this with so little gravel space, or with so many plants, does it become unnecessary? I do the water change at the same time, as the water is already emptied. I do also siphon off the plants, but how then do you get at the gravel???

I am very new at this, and I have never heard of Mr. Amano before. I'm sure you must have been very excited and pleased to have him in your home. I am definitely going to look up some of his books!!!!

hi soul-hugger,

The best suggestion I have for you is to get rid of your gravel. A lot of people use Flourite or regular old potting soil, covered up with pool filter sand. Or just straight pool filter sand (though if you have root-feeding plants, you'll need to add root fertilizers). In these two tanks, I used Eco-Complete, although in the pangio tank you'll see that there's pool filter sand in the front for the fish to burrow in, and eco-complete in the back for the plants to root in. I don't think Eco-Complete is the best substrate for loaches, so for my next tank I'm going to experiment with Flourite and pool filter sand. I'm a beginner too, so I'm still learning what works and what doesn't.

Anyway, when you're using one of these for your substrate instead of gravel, you won't need to vacuum it like you do the gravel, because the crud stays on top. Most of it gets swept away and sucked up by the filter, and the rest can be removed just by waving a siphon an inch or so above the surface. Usually when I'm changing water, I just wave my hand a bit above the surface of the sand, and it shakes up most of the junk, which can then be sucked up.

I have gravel and no plants in my quarantine tank, and it's definitely harder to keep clean.

Of course having lots of plants also helps keep the tank clean and stable, simply because the plants use up a lot of the waste products.

If you're good at houseplants, you're way ahead of me! I only dared to try aquatic plants because it's impossible to forget to water them Definitely give it a try!

I really liked your tank and loach pictures and than the surprise, very cool