How do you clean tanks w/ moss?

[batray girl]

I am going to start growing some kinds of mosses and other rooted plants in my aquarium, so the fish have more to hide in. Could anyone who already has a fish & plant tank tell me how one is supposed to clean tanks like this? Should I still vaccuum my gravel? Do I need to add another substrate?

[MyraVan]

Don't do a deep vacuuming (sticking the gravel vacuum deep into the gravel) near the plants' roots. The plants like mulm and will prevent it from doing any harm. If you see some mulm sitting on the top of the gravel and it bothers you (looks messy) you can hover the vacuum over it to pick it up, like you would with sand.

If your plants are doing all right with the gravel you might as well leave it. If you want more demanding plants in the future you may consider changing it for something more suitable for plants, but you'll probably need more light as well.

[batray girl]

What are my options for substrate though, while still having fish. Specifically the peacock eel (a nose-diver).

[MyraVan]

All planted tank substrates are fish-safe. People say that fish (and eels) that like to burrow in the substrate should be kept with something smooth, like sand, because sharp gravel cuts their skin. The problem here is that plants need the grains in the substrate to have little nooks and crannies in their surface for the little rootlets to grab onto. So really smooth substrates (like smooth gravel) are about the worst you can get for planted tanks.

But I'm not sure exactly how much attention to pay to the idea that burrowers need to be kept with really smooth substrates. For example, many people keep corydoras with sand, but they can be 100% healthy kept with ordinary gravel (although they don't exhibit some of the behaviours that they do with sand, like sifting the sand and blowing it out their gills).

I have some apple snails in a tank with a soil + gravel substrate. The gravel is alpine gravel (meant to be used with small alpine plants) from the garden center (although there was a little note on that package that it was fish safe and could be used in tanks and ponds). It's sort of rough-looking, not smooth and polished like some gravels are, but it's not very sharp: it doesn't hurt my hands as I wash it. The snails often dig little holes for themselves in the gravel to sleep in, and it doens't seem to have bothered them. I would guess that if my snails get along with ordinary (not smooth) gravel other burrowers would too.

One thing to stay away from is sandblasting sand, because that really is sharp, sharp enough to give you little cuts on your hand as you wash it.

[batray girl]

What soil do you put in and how does that affect fish? Does packaging let you know whether the sand was sandblasted or not?

[MyraVan]

The soil I've had the best results with is 50% cheap topsoil from the garden center, and 50% aquatic compost, which is a soil intended to be used in ponds, for planting lillies and such. The aquatic compost I use is not kiln-baked (unlike Schultz Aquatic Plant Soil) and although most garden centres over here carry at least one brand of it, it seems to be unavailable in the US.

The soil doesn't affect the fish (or snails) at all. But it does make the water cloudy for a few hours whenever you stir it up to remove or add plants. The plants love it!

You would know it if you got sandblasting sand, it's the stuff they use for (eg) shooting at buildings to clean the junk off stonework, and you buy it specifically for that purpose. Play sand is esy to find, cheap and nice and smooth (for fish as well as kids!).

[starrfish71]

So, play sand would work well for a planted tank? I have a bag of it and I am about to set up a similar tank as batray girl, and I was considering what substrate to use. I am curious as to how you "vaccuum" sand... it seems it would be so small it would just get sucked up in the syphon. And, if I don't use a syphon, how do you go about cleaning it?

[MyraVan]

The conventional wisdom is the following: Plain play sand is OK for planted tanks. It's certainly better than gravel! But better than just sand on its own is sand over some special plant growing stuff (like laterite or Flourite), or an expensive substrate on its own (like Flourite or Eco-complete). Just as good as the expensive substrates, and alot cheaper is 1" soil covered by 1" of plain gravel, which is what I use.

However, over the weekend I saw the most amazing tank. It was at a friend's house actually -- I heard he'd gotten into fish but for some reason I hadn't been over to check out the tank. It was just amazing, with a good variety of healthy plants, including some red ones, all grouped beutifully, and all growing in plain sand. (But with heavy fertilization.) So I'm beginning to wonder if plain sand isn't better than I'd given it credit for!

[MyraVan]

Oh, and as for how you clean sand: you just sort of hover the siphon over the sand, and the water flow picks up the junk from the top. You don't need to clean deep into the sand, since the messy stuff doesn't go into it, but just rests on the top.