# How can I clean the gravel??



## JD baby (Oct 2, 2010)

My aquarium is getting a bit grimy on the gravel, the tank came with a vacum type of thing that was suposed to clean the gravel but its useless.

What is the best way to clean it without disrupting my fish too much?? :confused1:


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## Guest (Oct 5, 2010)

What you need is a gravel siphon with a siphon bulb connected inline with the hose. All you do is simply squeeze the siphon bulb a few times until the siphon effect is great enough to lift water out of the aquarium. 

Then simply direct the other end of the hose into a bucket and work your way around the aquarium.

One thing that I would not advise is sucking on the end of the hose, there's nothing worse than receiving a mouthful of dirty aquarium water.


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## catz4m8z (Aug 27, 2008)

See, now I have one of these and it just breaks up any debris, lifts it into the first part of the tube then drops it back in the tank!
Mine doesnt actually seem to remove any muck at all, just the water.


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## JD baby (Oct 2, 2010)

catz4m8z said:


> See, now I have one of these and it just breaks up any debris, lifts it into the first part of the tube then drops it back in the tank!
> Mine doesnt actually seem to remove any muck at all, just the water.


Yeah its one of those that ive got and as I said before, its useless! Could hardly get it to take the water out at one point.

Idont really want to start disturbing the gravel in case all the muck starts floating about and making the water dirty :


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## livefishcam (Oct 28, 2010)

my gravel cleaner works a treat but i find having an external filter helps keep the gravel very clean anyway so when i do clean the gravel there isnt much mist or dirt :thumbup:


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## Hen House (Oct 31, 2010)

between my plec and the hand held gravel cleaner, my gravel is kept very clean :thumbup:


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## xBubblesx (Jan 20, 2010)

Depending what stock you have in your tank i would recommend a bristlenose pleco they are amazing, i use a vaccum gravel cleaner with the nozzle just dig it deep into the gravel and lift up and you should see all that dirt going up and down into the bucket, honestly great things.. i dont know what lfs would do without them.


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## deb53 (Jun 4, 2009)

Chillinator said:


> What you need is a gravel siphon with a siphon bulb connected inline with the hose. All you do is simply squeeze the siphon bulb a few times until the siphon effect is great enough to lift water out of the aquarium.
> 
> Then simply direct the other end of the hose into a bucket and work your way around the aquarium.
> 
> One thing that I would not advise is sucking on the end of the hose, there's nothing worse than receiving a mouthful of dirty aquarium water.


I use one of these. Cost me £4 and works great on all my tanks :thumbup:

.........Gone have the days of a gob full of dirty water. Done that many a time in years gone by YUK


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## Guest (Nov 7, 2010)

xBubblesx said:


> Depending what stock you have in your tank i would recommend a bristlenose pleco they are amazing,


Buying fish to 'clean' the tank isn't something I would recommend on a daily basis however. While Bristlenoses and certain other Plecs (including other _Ancistrus_ species) will mop up small patches of algae, adding more fish only results in more waste and algae.


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## xBubblesx (Jan 20, 2010)

I have a 5ft tank so i need a little help with algae, i only have one bristlenose thats only 1.5 inch and its not let me down yet  but i do agree not to rely on a fish to clean your tank. :scared:


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## cmontez88 (Nov 8, 2010)

You can use a siphon to clean your aquarium gravel. This is ideal since all the dirt just settles at the bottom of your tank so you need to vacuum them.

You can also use under-gravel filter to minimize the dirt on your gravel.


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