Vacuuming with Kuhli loaches and Shirmp? Perhaps a Matten Filter??

[Algaefishowl]

Hello, I have a lot of ground debris in the tank yet I'm concerned about accidently bothering the loaches or the shrimp when I vacuum. What is the suggestion around vacuuming and not disturbing the tank?

Also I was thinking of getting a matten filter for the 30 gallon tank. I have two sponge filters now but I figure they may not be that effective if the ground becomes a mess. If you have any suggestions it would be much appreciated. 

Thank you,

 Algaefishowl 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Algaefishowl

[FishyBen]

Why are you interested in gravel vacuuming? Is it for aesthetic purposes, tank cleanliness, perhaps water quality. If you have no ammonia or nitrite then all gravel vacing is doing is removing shrimp and loach food. 

If you really want to gravel vac I have found that slightly wiggling the vac tube above the gravel without actually touching the gravel creates enough water agitation to remove the top layer of filth. This can leave all the great alive stuff in the substrate intact. 

[nabokovfan87]

There's a few main ways to do this. I cannot speak to vacuuming with the loaches, but with the shrimp I am one of the few I think that thoroughly cleans the sand in my tank. We do have a tripod so I can try to record it for the journal one day.

Basically:

Option A. Use a net or a pain strainer to strain shrimp that might be siphoned up.

Option B. Just ignore the shrimp and go ahead and siphon like its any other tank. Try not to send them for a ride, of course, but also be sure to check the buckets and any filtration (sponges) before you turn the water to brown gunk.

Option C. Try to clear a section of the tank as best you can and go very intently, but slowly through a section. Be on alert and be able to pinch the siphon hose for the sake of needing to let a baby shrimp or shrimp swim back into the tank from the siphon tube.

Option D. Use a tea strainer+food container (idea from marks shrimp tanks) or pantyhose or something on the end of the siphon to keep shrimp out and proceed as normal.

Some tips and tricks....

Move hard scape and feeding dishes before you start the siphon, feed the tank on one side and come back in 10-15 minutes. That should move the shrimp to one side of the tank and let you clean the other half. Next week, you have one side that should be fairly clean and you just clean the other half.

It is almost critical to keep the shrimp feeding area clean. The reason for this is because all that detritus, waste, and food ends up in one concentrated section. Not cleaning that up regularly is one of the easiest ways people get hydra, planaria, or detritus worms en masse in their colonies.

Mentioned above, but practice and be able to siphon by "pumping" which is to say the technique Cory shows in his video where you pause the flow and the debris goes into the siphon tube. Because of that, then you can inspect for shrimp each time you turn on the pump/flow. What this does is allows you to seriously slow down the rate of water you remove as well.  This means lower volume and stress on the shrimp to top off the tank after maintenance as well. Which gives you the flexibility to use as much or as little water as you want. For those that drip water back in, very effective methodology!

Shrimp will "learn" to avoid the siphon. They learn the routine and they learn that it's not their friend. At first shrimp will go towards flow and it's pretty common for them to follow that path. Over time they will basically stop that behavior due to understanding what it's for. It's just something I've noticed with both types of shrimp I keep.

On 12/9/2023 at 7:18 PM, Algaefishowl said:

Also I was thinking of getting a matten filter for the 30 gallon tank. I have two sponge filters now but I figure they may not be that effective if the ground becomes a mess. If you have any suggestions it would be much appreciated. 

Flip aquatics talks about this and their method is to keep a very small layer of substrate to help with letting the air remove the debris. I've never had the strongest of air pumps be as effective as a siphon, even on a bare bottom tank. That being said, potentially that helps.

[gardenman]

If you have a canister filter or HOB going on the tank, you can just swish your hand through the water just above the debris to get it moving and your filter should remove it while the debris is suspended in the water. The old Vortex Diatom filters were great for this. Keeping a larger, high-volume HOB around for temporary use in this manner isn't the worst idea. Get the debris you want removed up in the water column and let the filter deal with it. Ideally, the filter strainer would be fine enough to prevent losing shrimp while open enough to let the fine debris through. You'll want an oversized filter with a high flow rate for this if you go that route. You want it filtering the tank water very quickly while the debris is still suspended. You can also come back every now and then and stir things up again.