How do I clean fish food/ waste out of river rock?

[Sneakymouse]

Hi I’m new to the fish keeping world and recently inherited a little female betta. I’m hoping for some advice on how to properly clean her tank. I have river rock at the bottom (instead of gravel) was going for a more natural look. Yesterday I used my cleaning tool for the first time and was trying to just get out the leftover food/fish waste but instead I ended up draining quite a bit of the water out of the tank. I feel  like I didn’t get everything from in between the rocks is this something that will harm my fish? Is there a way to do a quick clean and just get the waste? (Maybe there’s a technique I’m missing?) not trying to skimp on normal cleanings by any means just trying to keep her tank looking nice. 

[theotheragentm]

I'm assuming you can't increase flow in the tank since you have a Betta and she won't like the additional flow. Aside from lifting the rocks to get under them, you can try  siphoning with airline tubing. It will fit better between rocks without pulling as much water. The other thing you can do in addition is use some plants like anubias and java fern, maybe some mosses and jam them into the crevices between the rocks. Let them consume some of the waste as well.

[Patrick_G]

Welcome to the forum. I’ve kept a Betta with 1” river rock and found maintenance to be a little difficult because of uneaten food falling between the rocks. At first I tried feeding him with some aquarium tweezers so he ate as much food as possible, but I eventually decided to switch to an Aquarium substrate when we upsized his tank. 
A trick I learned from @Irene’s YouTube channel is to make a small siphon using some airline tubing attached to a chopstick. You can suck up the excess detritus but not remove too much water. 

[Guppysnail]

Pinch the hose slighly to slow the flow and pinch completely when moving spots to stop flow so you do not drain as much water.