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I currently have NO real plants in my tank, and am just starting to think about getting some. I know I have to have certain lighting for certain plants, and I'm sure will have many questions if I decide to add some. But I have one question already:

Do you still need to gravel vac with live plants? I mean, I assume you do, but I don't understand how you could do it if the plants grow out roots.

I'm sure this is an easy question for anyone with experience. Thanks,

-Dennis

Hi,
The short answer is, yes. You do need to vacuum the gravel
in a planted tank. The more correct answer is that it
depends upon how "planted" your planted tank is.

As a whole, a tanks' substrate will collect all sorts of
detritus (gunk on the bottom) ranging from household dust,
gobules of grease collected around dust, fish poop, excess
food and snail poop. The bacteria colonies within the
gravel will do their best to break this stuff down,
eventually to nitrates and other organic compounds.

You, have to clean the substrate.

Don't do it wholesale.
In other words don't do the entire tank at once, that will
kill off or damage the colonies and can cause your tank
to recycle all over again. Instead, mentally divide the
tank into quarters, and every three months, along with
your normal maintenance, deep clean the substrate clear to
the glass bottom of the tank, one quarter at a time. Then
wait three months and do the next quarter of the tank.
In a year the tank will be cleaned and you start back over
at the first quarter.

Now with a planted tank, you should not do that in the
areas immediately around the plant. That kind of treatment
will deprive them of the nutrients stored in the gravel,
and that kind of aggressive cleaning will destroy the roots
from the plants. With a planted tank, "deep clean" the open
swimming areas and unplanted foreground areas. With tanks
that have carpet plants that cover the open areas, you would
swirl your hand vigorously over the area to bring up the
detritus into the water and then syphon the water out of
the tank. Do the same with areas that are heavily planted.
Bring the stuff up into suspension, and syphon it off.
This is also the time, weekly, to remove any dead or dying
plant leaves.

Hope this helps...
Frank


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

swirl your hand vigorously over the area to bring up the
detritus into the water and then syphon the water out of
the tank

lol, thats what i do around my fake plants because taking them out would cause toooo many problems.

Last edited by Azn_Devil at 16-Feb-2005 16:45

I've wondered if rooted aquatic plants require the same kind of "soil aeration" that we do in land gardening. That is, to gently tease the soil (or in our case, gravel, flourite or whatever), so that the gravel gets some fresh air. I know land based plants can begin to die off if the soil becomes so compacted as to not allow air. I would think the same could apply to aquatic substrates. Althought, I'm thinking this is one benefit to MTS is that they do that particular job

How deep do those snails go anyway?

Frank, you've mentioned a 3-4 inch flourite base and you run a UGF. If you weren't running a UGF, would you still plant it that deep for your rooted plants? If you had only some rooted plants would you vary the thickness of your aquascape to accomodate the areas with only stem plants?

Last edited by Cory_Di at 07-Mar-2005 12:42