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Hello,
Has anyone every cleaned their tank fully? Such as taking gravel out, cleaning UGF completely, and emptying 75% of the water? I think I need to. The deterus under my UGF i think is causing a problem. I am wondering if i should take all the gravel out from under my UGF and clean completely? Thanks.

Chris

Hi,
There is rarely a reason to completely tear down a tank.
Also with a properly installed UGF there is no gravel
under the filter. A UGF should ALWAYS be installed first,
and then the gravel carefully placed on top of the filter
plates in a pile, to weigh the plate down, and then the
gravel spread outward from the center of the pile to the
tank edges.

I don't recall that this tank has been setup all that long.
It seems like only "yesterday" that you were asking about
what to stock it with and if it were cycling. My 30G tank
with a UGF and a single riser driven by a small power head
has been set up for over 13 years continuously, and I have
not yet had to tear the tank down.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

I bought this tank prebuilt. I was asking about what to get rid of and some other stuff. Today I found the gravel underneath and I did something wrong... There is some gravel going like halfway up one intake tube. There are two intake tubes.

Chris

If you take all the gravel out and clean it...and take out most of the water, you have almost no good bacteria left, which means you will have to cycle the tank again. Its alot of work unless very necessary.

If your UGF is installed incorrectly, you probably should take the gravel out. Put the fish in some sort of holding tank (you can use a plastic tub), take the gravel out and most of the tank water and place it in another tub (don't wash it). Then you can fix the UGF. Keep the filter running on one of the tubs to preserve the bacteria.

*Kristin*

If your ugf is not installed correctly then you can remove the gravel but you cannot rinse it in tapwater. You need to rinse it in a bucket of tank water preferably or possibly dechlorinated tapwater but plain tapwater will kill all the bacteria. Then you properly install the ugf and replace the gravel. You will have to watch out for a mini cycle but so long as you aren't too rough with the gravel you shouldn't see more than a couple days of ammonia and nitrites if any at all.

How do I take the gravel out?

Chris

when i pulled my 20g tank down completely i used a large plastic cup to remove the gravel. when removing it place it in a bucket of tank water and try to keep the filter running.. i doubt it will be necessary to remove it and clean it out if it hasnt been running for very long.. make sure you put the intake pipes back in before replacing the gravel.

---

Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them

If you wish to maintain the functioning of the bacteria colony, then one way of doing this would be to press a spare aquarium into service. Install a UGF in the spare aquarium correctly, transfer a proportion of the main aquarium water to that along with the gravel, then run the UGF in the spare aquarium while you correct the faulty installation of the UGF in the main aquarium. Utilise dechlorinated water as per the usual rules for a water change to top up the spare while you perform a gravel vac upon the gravel to remove gunk. The fishes can be kept in a bucket for an hour or so while this is being done, particularly in warm weather (the water won't cool down greatly if you're experiencing weather like that we've had here in the UK recently, with daytime temperatures in the 80s Fahrenheit).

Addditionally, siphon off some of the old aquarium water and store that in a separate bucket. The reason will become apparent shortly.

Once the main aquarium UGF is properly installed, fill part way with new, dechlorinated water, part with the old aquarium water siphoned off as described in the previous paragraph, then begin transferring plants and fishes back to it.

A variation on this procedure will also be useful if you ever decide to upgrade your aquarium to a larger model. You can use the existing aquarium water and gravel to set up the larger aquarium, so that you minimise the chances of a mini-cycle. If done with care, the filter bacteria should remain largely intact and ready to perform their job from the start.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002