Siphoning
- Thread starter snus29
- Start date
In most cases, I would agree to always clean the gravel when doing a water change. The only exception is if you have a heavily planted tank and want to keep the 'mulm' for the plants to use as food. If that is the case, you always want to test the water regularly for any spikes in ammonia or nitrite, because too much mulm is a bad bad thing!
In my tanks with sand I havn't siphoned the bottom in a long time... almost never. The waste seems to break down into nothing pretty quickly. I could post pictures, but the bottom is clean as a whistle. Gravel is a different story though. For this reason I would actually love to transfer all my tanks to sand.
All substrates have their advantages and disadvantages.
I can't use sand with the plants I keep as it is too hard to keep them planted until the roots develop (newly planted clippings of stem plants). Plus I use powerheads in my tanks and sand kills the impellers quickly. I don't like big chunky gravel, but kind of a hybrid of sand and gravel.
I can't use sand with the plants I keep as it is too hard to keep them planted until the roots develop (newly planted clippings of stem plants). Plus I use powerheads in my tanks and sand kills the impellers quickly. I don't like big chunky gravel, but kind of a hybrid of sand and gravel.
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