# Plants and Cleaning



## 65galhex (Nov 5, 2008)

So as I hunt for more plants to go into my tank- swords, vals, crypts, etc; I am curious is to what would be the best way to maintain the tank. Do I gravel vac in between the plants or just go over them? Do I even still need to gravel vac or can I just do water changes? What if someone had the whole bottom of the tank covered in plants, how would they clean the tank? Sorry for the noob questions, but work is a bit dead and my mind naturally started to wonder..... haha.


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## notoriouslyKEN (Jul 31, 2003)

I have a planted tank and I gravel vac around the plants, but I have a sand substrate so I don't need to go digging around. I just hover around the plants and pick up anything sitting on top of the sand. The problem with digging around is that you will uproot the plants and all the nutrients in the gravel. Are you using gravel now? In a heavily planted tank, the plants will keep the nitrates at an acceptable level and use the fish waste as nutrients to the roots.


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## 65galhex (Nov 5, 2008)

I should have mentioned that I have a sand substrate as well.


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## JoeDizzleMPLS (Nov 5, 2007)

if you have a lot of plants, you don't even need to gravel vac, just change out water. the junk in the gravel actually gets used up by the plants.


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

I dont gravel vac. If some debris is obvious i will pick it out. I also have sand so debris doesnt get hidden much


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## Plowboy (Apr 9, 2008)

I vac between and under plants as well as I can without being to rough with the plants.

I don't see any reason why you couldn't do anything you wanted though, as long as your ammo levels stay at 0.


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## Ibanez247 (Nov 9, 2006)

If your tank is heavily planted get a clean up crew. Some cherry barbs, sting ray pleco(not sure if thats what they are really called but they stay small and hide really well.) Maybe even some corey cats. I put convicts in my pygo tank originally as food. Now they are the cleaning crew after breeding I got a bunch lol.


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