Aquarium Housekeeping

[Cermet]

No amount of filtering will clean solid fish waste from the bottom; you MUST vacuum that away and do it every day if it builds up. Like firefly says, five minutes a day - not a lot of water. If the fish kick up enough to cloud the water, that is way, way too much and vacuuming is essential.

[talldutchie]

...totally just replied a nice long post and it didn't post...lol.

Instead of a sponge could I perhaps fashion a sleeve out of maybe a filter media bag? Would this cause my tank to become even worse with waste than it already is though?

no but they clog easily

Even if my parameters are ok - the waste is unsightly - is it my filter that is not powerful enough to handle this? or are these fish just that messy?

Also - they don't tell you at 18 that plecos are monsters - 7 years later now I've found that out!

The fact that most shops in your country refuse to inform customers of what they buy is, unfortunately, well known. At least you are trying to solve it, too many people don't. OVer here the last 2-3 years or so we see more and more shops display information cards with the vital statistics. Still even then they make mistakes (claiming that a clown loach only grows to 5 inches for example) but it's progress.

These fish are reasonably messy, if you get little flow over the bottom then it stays there.

[Interlux]

No amount of filtering will clean solid fish waste from the bottom; you MUST vacuum that away and do it every day if it builds up. Like firefly says, five minutes a day - not a lot of water. If the fish kick up enough to cloud the water, that is way, way too much and vacuuming is essential.

Fair enough - as was said a few posts ago my filter is underpowered for this size most likely - but I understand that this is not a filtering problem. By 'cloud' the water I just meant they wil disturb the gravel enough to throw some waste into the air that floats around for a little before settling. Poor choice of words on my part.

no but they clog easily

The fact that most shops in your country refuse to inform customers of what they buy is, unfortunately, well known. At least you are trying to solve it, too many people don't. OVer here the last 2-3 years or so we see more and more shops display information cards with the vital statistics. Still even then they make mistakes (claiming that a clown loach only grows to 5 inches for example) but it's progress.

These fish are reasonably messy, if you get little flow over the bottom then it stays there.

They definitley do not inform customers enough - I had never seen a Pleco or Gourami that large - so I assumed the ones in tanks were mostly grown. Obviously they were not - 18 year old less learned!

Is there any way to create more flow at the bottom of the tank?


PS: I'm realatively new compared to most members here so stick with me! Thanks so far for all the help - learning a lot.