Gravel Cleaning help

[nathanp2007]

Ok so im not talking about the typical gravel cleaning with a syphon. Id like to know what i have to do , to clean my gravel completely, like take it out of the tank, put it in a bucket..then what? Boiling water? a certain chemical? what....
Yes i know that takes away good bacteria, BUT my tank as carl knows has been terrible for the past 3 months...just constant green cloud, even when i take 80% of the water out threw gravel cleaning it comes back in a week, and i only have 6 small fish, i dont over feed and all i can think of that its coming from is my gravel. SO i want to take it out, clean it so its just like new. Thanks


PS When taking my fish out to drain all the water out (if the gravel thing doesnt fix the constant green cloud) what do i put the fish in? I have a 5 gallon tank thats empty but cycled with water in it, i can put the 5 tetras in there for a few hours i figure but what about the siamese shark? do i put it in one of my 5 gal buckets with declorinated water in it?

[murdock6701]

I would move the fish to the 5 - rinse your gravel from the old tank - I use cold well water, then hot water, then cold water again - save your filter and the nitrifying bacteria w/ it - when restarting your tank. pur the water from the 5 gallon in it along w/ new - just bear in mind that new tanks have a terndency to do a brown algae thing or not have clear water for a while til establisged - keep the new tank out of sunlight - do not overcrowd w/ live plants - add 1 tsp seasalt per 5 gallons of water - keep filter clean from mulm - do not put more than 1" of gravel in the bottom of your tank - kind of the basics I follow Nate - no garuantees, but ay least it's a good path to follw - be patient - new tanks can be a bummer to start sometimes - my baby tank took 6 months before the brown algae went away - same w/ T-Bone and a few others - do you have well water? good luck!

[eve]

sorry, but i will give you another option on doing it

what you will need
♥ 2 5 gallon buckets
♥ a cup, just big enough to scoop out the gravel (another thing which works well is a cat crap scooper, new of course)
♥ a strainer to wash the gravel through

no need to take out the fish
no need to empty the tank completely of water either


how and what to do:

♥ first turn of all equipment, filter heater and whatever else you have in your tank

♥ siphon off about 25% of the tank water, this will later be replaced with fresh conditioned water, so no need to keep it

♥ start scooping out the gravel from one side of the tank, only do half of the tank and put it all in one of the buckets

♥ once you have half of the gravel, go to your sink or bathtub, and start rinsing the gravel in the strainer
exchange from going hot to cold, do that as long as you have to, basically until the water comes off completely clear

♥ put the cleaned gravel in the other bucket

♥ do that until all the gravel is cleaned thorough

♥ go back to your tank, leave the cleaned gravel in the bucket

♥ scoop out the other half of the gravel into the other bucket

♥ once all the gravel is out, go ahead and put the gravel which is cleaned already back in the tank

♥ just use your cup, scoop up the gravel, and slowly submerse it into the tank

♥ slowly go down to the bottom and empty out the cup there

♥ repeat until you have all the clean gravel in

♥ then go clean the other half of the gravel, and repeat the whole same procedure

♥ once all the gravel is back in the tank, fill up with conditioned water

♥ rinse of the filter pads with hand warm water

♥ turn on all equipment

♥ and wohoo, you're done


you will experience cloudiness for a couple of days at the very most, then it should completely clear up

your fish will not be harmed in any way, no need to take them out, just make sure you don't scoop them out

in my experience they will just move to the other corner of the tank and stay out of your way


what i just described above, is the same way you would exchange your gravel with a new one
or replace it with sand or whatever else you might choose to use

your tank won't need to go through the cycling process again, because you won't loose any good bacteria


hope that made sense
Eve

[jonv]

I see benefits of having two people explain how they handle gravel change here. If you have also been in contact with Carl about the green issue, I'm sure you got some extra options to look over as well. What I see here isn't so much a disagreement as a lay out of your choices, and that in my opinion is good customer service and teamwork!

So reading over your input nathan, what I took out of that is it doesn't seem like you have sick fish or anything that appears to be going wrong with them, but more of an unsightly issue? Green algae taking over? I don't see cleaning the gravel out is a bad thing, a siphon certainly should be doing it for you, but if you feel it's not, taking the gravel out is a good way to put your mind at ease on that aspect.

I'd like to offer you something to contemplate as well here. The key I picked up on your post as I see it, your main complaint is the green taking over? That I think is an algae issue and not something I think would be caused by gravel, but I'm not what I'd call a diagnositcs expert in this area. If algae is what the real issue is, in the past, I've found as a good way to tackle green algae is limiting what produces it.

1. Lighting
2. Nitrates
3. CO2
4. Phosphates

Now I think Carl could verify if that's on the right track or not, and if I'm not certainly I could use being put on the right track myself, so Carl please tell me if I am wrong because this is what I usually advise, and I don't want to give wrong advice.

You may already be doing these things too Nathan, so if you already have these aspects under control, then clearly I'd move on with the gravel cleaning.

Lighting-try to limit the time the lights are on to 8-10 hours max, or basically keep a normal day light cycle as your fish would experience in their natural habitats. From what I understand, fish tend to be less active and less stressed in lower lights and darkness as well, and thus would probably output less ammonia and follow the cycle then, less nitrates.

Nitrates-If you are already doing larger sized water changes, but still finding your algae blooming, and you are limiting your amount of light, what might help you to cut nitrates out of the algae equation then, is to not do one large change, but two medium changes, just more often. I generally do my changes once a week, but I also run 4-5 tanks at a time and rather larger sized tanks too (180,100,75...)This can be extremely time consuming. Maybe in order to tackle the nitrate aspect, try doing every 4-5 days, 40% changes. With your bio load, as it doesn't sound large, and you are not over feeding, I would guess that the other factors are what's fueling algae, but at the same time, cutting nitrate build up almost out of that equation can't hurt you either.

3. CO2- Soop is someone I know has extensive experience in plant aspects, and goes without saying Carl knows too. I'm by far in no way any type of expert in plants, so my guess would be CO2 shouldn't be that much of an issue for you if you are not trying to run a heavily planted tank and having a CO2 injector going. Algae however is a form of plant life and as such, CO2 is a critical element for it to grow. If you aren't running a CO2 injector into a tank, I don't know of anything you can do to cut this to cut off algae growth, but I didn't see if your tank was planted and you run this or not, so I thought I'd throw that out there to consider.

4. Phosphates- In my opinion, this is one aspect of water chemistry not often addressed as much as the nitrogen compounds. It makes sense though to put more attention on your nitrogen compounds first, but this is another key element of plant growth and thus algae growth as well. There's a couple things I have done before, when algae got bad in my tanks that worked, and in addition to the lighting, and water change step up, didn't run CO2 injections so didn't have to address that, was employ phosphate removing elements.

You can get a phosphate remover from your LFS most likely, and Carl if you offer these on American Aquarium Products, please step that in here as well. Not to compete with Carl's products either, since when I got this, I didn't know about Carl's services, is Algone. I cannot say anything bad about Algone as this in conjunction with other things I mentioned, made green algae all but disappear in all my tanks. Algone is reportedly a nitrate remover as well, and I took testing reports in my tanks, and can't say I saw a significant drop in nitrates, but I know green algae is no longer an issue for me.

That's my take on your input nathan is you have an algae issue, and if that is the case, I hope this input helps you out. We are all working togeather here to solve problems and questions for each other, so if someone can add to the suggestions, or has an alternative route, or can correct something I might have presented incorrectly, please do because my hopes and goal is that you become happy with your issue getting resolve nathan.

Jon

[Carl]

Nathan, I think you have gotten several good points/suggestions for your problem.

I think both Murdocks and Eves suggestion work to achieve the same objective; Clean gravel without a total collapse of your tanks nitrogen cycle. I think the suggestion of saving filter media as pointed out my Murdock is important.

Jon made several points that are extremely important as even if changing/washing gravel clears the problem, this may be temporary and the problem may return.
In fact that is my main concern, as I have observed these exact conditions MANY times before when making a house/office call to a clients aquarium. AND EVERY time there was some factor that was missed by my client and once addressed, the problem of green water went away for good.

Jon already mentioned CO2, phosphates, lighting and nitrates.

Nitates;I have used Algone as well with mixed results (actually better in SW?). Water changes even Zeolite (by removing ammonia prior to cycling), removing mulm (as already noted earlier in this thread, and as well the gravel cleaning may help).

Phosphates; water changes, several available resins, and live plants help for this.

CO2; Again plants, water changes, EFFECTIVE cleanings that remove the source of CO2 (DOC, mulm)

Lighting; This is where I have a gut feeling where your problem may reside, covering the tank as suggested by Jon may help discover if this is a cause. If your tank is near a window and/or has incorrect lighting may cause this problem. I do not remember is I asked this question before, so pardon me for asking again; What type/brand is your aquarium lighting?

Finally your filtration simply may not be helping enough, even if it is normally effective for other tanks. I would consider a filter that has a low flow by rate and has fine poly pads or at least add fine poly pads to your filter. I have had EXCELLENT results with poly pads with green water and similar particulate problems.
See this article about filter media (including poly pads, resins, etc.):
Aquarium Answers; Filter Media

Also this article about filtration:
Aquarium Filtration

Carl

[jonv]

Thanks Carl, damn, I always forget something!! Thank you for catching the near the window one!!! I don't know why but I always forget to bring that point up. See, once again, good teamwork.

[goldenpuon]

I would have something to add but it is already added for me! Great job guys!

[nathanp2007]

Ok so , first of all to clarify it isnt green GROWTH , its just a extremely think green cloud. And when the tank is 90% clear again, its a green tint, that becomes the green cloud in like a week. Why i think it might be the gravel is because the gravel DOES have green growth, just typical green algae but on most of the gravel. I know that algae remover removes it, but i dont like putting that in all the time. My light is the light that came with my tank (remember im a ameuter fish tank owner, and dont want to go pro) and it is a "All Glass Aqaurium" brand..thats all thats on it and the box.
Second, light from window(s) my tank gets none of, yes my tank is right infront of a window in my room, but the shade is ALWAYS down. my tank has no growth on the walls or anywhere besides some of the gravel.
My filtration is a spong filter from your company carl and the pengiun filter from Marineland. Like i said i only have 6 fish

This should be the easiest ever thing to take care of...so much water..so little fish...my light is only on for 7-8 hours (on timer)..my fish are healthy..i dont over feed.....yet the COOLEST thing about having a fish tank---clear water and beautiful fish....i dont get to show cause my tank is green cloudy and i hesistate to put more fish in while its having this issue.

I will do the gravel washing...i hope that fixes it.. i remember reading its supposed to be EASIER taking care of a large tank than a small tank...my 5 gal has been EASY and my 40 has been terrible since i bought it.....fish dieing..cloudyness...green cloudyness....sucks

[nathanp2007]

Oh and also why i think it might be the gravel When i gravel vacumm sometimes when sticking it in the gravel (the vacumm) along with waste it pulls up a cloud of very green particles. Its very hard to explain but ya. It just pulls up green stuff that isnt waste...its just pure green particles. And that makes me think that the green stuff is in the gravel (some of it) (idk what from) and from the gravel leaks it pollutes the water so it becomes cloudy green.

[Carl]

Yes we aware that you have a green “pea soup” cloud, this thread has yielded you several good points from experienced fish keepers, I would consider them all from the gravel washing, to the poly pads, and to tank placement.
As to tank placement, I have seen pea soup green water in tanks even when the shades are down 24/7, so I would strongly recommend either moving the tank or placing a blanket behind the aquarium to totally block ANY potential light from outdoors. Also as for lights, the lights that often come with these tanks are often of low quality, but I am not saying to change it, yet.

Every point you make are things I have seen so we just need to eliminate these things and improve other aspects, so that we can get your tank more enjoyable.

I will point out (knowing this is not likely something you want to invest in), but a UV Sterilizer will clear this up in a snap, but I still feel this can be taken care without this investment for a smaller tank such as yours (if this was a much larger thank I would strongly recommend one for a variety of reasons).

I know I have pointed out this article before, however I know I have added more information about green water since then:
Freshwater Aquarium Basics; Green Water

Carl

[babygeige]

I know how frustrating it is to fight problems like this too nathan. I've been dealing with algae in my 30 gallon on and off for several months now. It just takes patience. Don't give up!

[jonv]

Nathan,

That's a very detailed and well laid about logic flow on what you are looking at the gravel. That's an excellent explanation. I'm not trying to ignore that input and I think if that were my tank, I'd be very frustrated as well. Green coloring though, I'm sure has to be algae related and I think dealing with your gravel as well may work. If you find this still doesn't solve the issue, please treat this as an algae issue. I hope it all works out well for you.

Jon

[goldenpuon]

I seem to have the opposit problem. No green alage anywhere in my tanks. I put one of mine next to a window to see if I could get any since a little doesn't hurt and is good for alage eating fish.

[cashay]

I don't get algea, ( i guess because of my nerite snails ) but should I get some? sounds like some is good....

[Carl]

Sept 19, 2008 11:41:29 GMT -5 cashay said:

I don't get algea, ( i guess because of my nerite snails ) but should I get some? sounds like some is good....

No your fine!

In a marine tank I like to encourage green algae (especially in a Refugium), but although not a bad thing in FW, not having it is fine and your Nerite snails are doing their job.

Carl

[bikeguy33]

I would like to add to what eve said on Sept 8/08. she mentioned rinsing the gravel and sponges in water. what i`d recommend is to clean everything in the water from the tank. no bacterial loss by doing it this way. gravel can be thrown in a spaghetti strainer and tank water poured overtop into another 5 gal bucket. in my experience, this same water can effectively clean 4 times going back and forth, so alot of gravel can be cleaned with 1 bucket of water.

[cashay]

GREAT!