KyleBradley said:
Duly noted, Lotus. As far as filter changes go, I usually use the sprayer in my kitchen sick to wash the debris off of the fiber media about once every two weeks or so, and I put new charcoal in the cartridges of all of the Emperor 280's.
As far as water changes go, I was changing 10-20% every month and keeping track of all of my maintenance with a program I found online called Reefcon 2000, but lately when I do water changes, my water is cloudy for about a week or so, and I don't enjoy my tanks. So lately I've been looking at the gravel for excessive food buildup and testing pH, nitrites and ammonia to determine water change time. If there is excessive debris on the bottom of the tank, I use the gravel vacuum and do the 20% water change. This usually results in my filter getting clogged due to all of the floating matter getting sucked up the strainer tube, and it's a real pain in the butt. My 30-gallon was horribly dirty when I got it, as far as under the gravel is concerned (looked like mud when the lady was draining it), but the water itself was beautifully clear and looked like the ocean. She told me that it's good to have this crap in the gravel because it nourishes the plants. In fact when I asked her about the gravel vacuum, she said that it was a bad idea because the plants will use the excess matter that settles in the rocks. It's hard to argue with her due to the quality and beauty of the tanks when I arrived at her house. Anybody can set up a new tank and have it be pretty, but hers were three years running and still beautifully clear, although the gravel essentially had mud under it.
I use stuff called, I think, Easy Balance, that is supposed to reduce the need for water changes.
1. A moderately to heavily planted tank will use the poo and other debris as a fertilizer yes.
2. Never wash off any filter media in un de-chlorinated/de chloramined tap water, you will kill off the bacteria that you need and set your tank into a mini-cycle, (the bacteria bloom that your having aka your cloudiness.) only rinse half the media in used tank water and rotate sides every time.
3. Chemicals Suck. Most are a waster of money, and with a community tank, with all kinds of fish, they all have special sensitivities, specialy clown loaches
4. To keep your filter from pulling the debris in, i turn mine off when doing a water change/gravel vac. and any free floating debris i catch in a net before i turn the filter back on.
5. You said you tested nitrites and ammonia, what about NITRATES, in excess amounts this can be just as harmful as amonia or nitrites.
6. Charcoal is not needed and after time only makes problems for your tank. the only time you need charcoal is to REMOVE chemicals/medicines. Other than that it is useless well not useless it can remove odors but if left in long enough it will leech what it has pulled out right back in.
7. If you have that much floating matter when you do a gravel vac that your filter gets gunked up that quick then you are feeding too much. Cut back the amount of food you are feeding. I even give my fish one day off a week without food.
8. YES! you do have fish that will outgrow that tank. and YES clowns do grow big, Pelcos do grow big, (depending on what pleco you have, a common pleco for instance can grow to 2 feet in length), and YES! ID sharks in fact most sharks grow big as well. if you want to do some research go to truest sites, for catfish, i suggest
www.planetcatfish.com a very good site.
hope this helps.
Ps: The people of this board, and every board, are just fish keepers like you, some who have had great success, some who have had moderate success. And MOST who have had some sort of disaster, we learn from our mistakes. They are not paid to help you with a problem. You came to them for questions. some of your post seem "rude" (ie: the one to lotus) and imo was uncalled for.
Oh and i forgot, in your one post you asked something like why you hadn't had any problems with your danios, or goramis, just so you know Danios are extremely hardly, as are gouramis, Danios, are generally used to Cycle aquariums in a fish-cycle.
