Opinions about stirring sand or gravel during weekly water changes?

[bekateen]

Before I jump to a MHF in a tank with Panaqolus and a sand substrate, maybe I'd better consider these two old posts:

From: Sponge filters in a plec tank?:

We had the question in several forums, if this ist good for plecos.
To sum up, we can say:

Peckoltia and even Hypancistrus is not interested in the foam mat very much.

Ancistrus "and friends" is sometimes scavanging on the mat, probably feeding only the particles on it.

Panaque seems to feed on the mat as well but also damages and probably eats it.

Although there were some traces of feeding also the plastic material, no body observed any sickness or death of a pleco.

So foam filtering systems will work with most plecos. Be a little carefull with Panaque species.

From Re: Filters:

The hamburg mattenfilter/poret filter foam is really good [for] fry tanks, corydoras and many other ste-ups but it doesn't work well with sand or strong current. Also my Panaque blocked it in about 8 months.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

if I allow plants to grow on a HMF sponge, do the plant roots clog the filter?

Depends upon the plant, things like Hemianthus will only grow on top of the filter plate, and have very short roots.

I used 4" thick PPI10 poret foam (bought from Germany) and I had problems with Hygrophila corymbosa and various Anubias which rooted right through the foam. It isn't really a problem, but you can't ever remove all the roots.

Moss ended up very mulmy, but Java fern was excellent (planted on the foam), as it doesn't really form roots (the rhizoids are just for attachment).

I used a "Maxi-jet"1200 powerhead, rather than a air-lift, there wasn't any particular reason for this, I just had it to hand. The flow of water through the plate would have been stronger than Dr Tanner recommends, and I didn't find this a problem (but I had plants and a sand substrate).

Even though the power head was behind the filter plate I still put a foam block on it.

cheers Darrel

[bekateen]

Thanks Darrel, all very helpful.

[TwoTankAmin]

Just a quick note. I set up my first 100% Poret canister this past week. Its an older model, a Pro II 2026 (but NIB) and I used all 20 ppi foam. I a am finally replacing the leaker that was an in-wall tank. The filter is now running on a 75 gal. tank. It is being given a mini-cycling using squeezings from the bio-farm filters and some ammonia. Other filters will be added from the bio-farm before any fish go into the tank. Some of them will be removed over time as the Eheim settles in.

I can tell you this, cutting Poret foam to fit the baskets took a fair amount of time. If you have never seen these baskets, you cannot imagine what is involved. The final indignity is that once you have the foam cut to the proper shape with the hole "drilled" through it and the indentations for the handle guides and then the handle itself. You can not insert it into the basket as a single piece because the handle doesn't lift up high enough. So you have to cut the foam in half and then insert each piece.

I am not looking forward to doing this again when it comes time to set up the Eheim 2028, it has 3 baskets to fill.

[pleconut]

I have stirred sand/ gravel in the past throughout the entire tank but now avoid doing the entire tank at once as i sometimes noticed my fish flashing afterwards when they had not been doing so before instead and I do the same in vacuuming routine also where I will do a 1/3 or a 1/2 of tank thorough vacuum/ stir of gravel depending on tank size and the rest a surface clean alternating with each water change but i do smaller 10% but more regular waterchanges 2/3 times a week not in every tank i have find this prevents stress to catfish as you can try encourage them towards opposite end to where you're cleaning. Teresa

[NCE12940]

My BNs would prefer that I do deep gravel vac every day as it turns up stuff they can eat. I have to be careful not to suck them up as they also like to sucker around on and in the vacuum tube. One of my male blue-fins comes out of his cave to attack the tube when it gets too close to his cave. The BNs are the only ones though that love gravel vac day.