Remove all decorations rocks and plants that arent rooted in the gravel etc from your tank. If you do not have an aquarium gravel cleaner you can instead mix the water.
To minimize the amount of food available to snails consider installing some fast growing plants that will use up those nutritients to their own benefit leaving less for snails.
How to remove food from aquarium gravel. You can remove uneaten food from the fish tank using a gravel cleaner by putting some bottom feeders in an aquarium. The other tools which you can use are fishnet some scooping tool etc. You must do manual cleaning weekly and a filter is best to keep the aquarium clean from uneaten food.
By preventing overfeeding to your fish you can prevent uneaten food mess in the water. Cleaning your fish tank gravel with a vacuum made specifically for the fish tank is the easiest method of cleaning. Fish tank vacuums are designed to quickly and easily remove bits of uneaten food and other waste that settles to the bottom of the tank.
However a fish tank gravel vacuum isnt the only alternative. Create a 10 bleach solution in a clean bucket that has not had other cleaning chemicals in it. This is 1 part bleach to 9 parts water.
Pour the solution into a bucket of the gravel to be cleaned and gently stir the gravel to ensure thorough cleaning. Do not let the gravel soak for more than 10-15 minutes. Ive noticed a that mixed in with the gravel theres uneaten food Mimmo my Beta is a picky eater or on a hunger strike lol.
I try to remove it with a spoon but when the spoon touches the uneaten food it gets messy and goes all over the tank. Turkey baster is the easiest way. You should not put metal spoons in your tank.
Before you start this process make sure that the glass walls of your aquarium are clean. If they are not clean the dirt from the glass and dirt will mix in the water and the cleaner will remove the dirty water. The cleaner will not only remove the dirt.
Also there is some unnecessary waste trapped into your gravel like the decade plant roots. To remove it from the aquarium you should vacuum your gravel using a siphon. How frequently you will have to use the siphon is really depends on how much unnecessary waste gets trapped in your aquarium.
Generally you should clean your gravel once in two weeks. Provide less food for a while and see how it goes. The less leftovers there is on the gravel the less snails you have to deal with.
To minimize the amount of food available to snails consider installing some fast growing plants that will use up those nutritients to their own benefit leaving less for snails. Prepare a clean tank where youll move your fish while you clean the gravel. Then use a siphon or a cup to move about 50 percent of your tank water to the holding tank.
This should ensure your fish are held in the same conditions they are used to. Next remove the decoration props inside the aquarium one by one and clean them individually. Use disinfectants as required but be sure to rinse them with adequate water afterward.
To clean the poop you can just drain the tank with a fish tank pump see this miracle tool available on amazon or scoop away the excrements. Afterward remove the gravel or pebble layer and wash. For me using bleach and water is the best method on how to clean old aquarium gravel.
Just be careful not to use too much bleach. As much as possible keep the concentration below ten percent. And afterward thoroughly rinse the gravel with hot or warm water until no bleach remains.
The best method to fixing algae on aquarium gravel is to cut off its food sources. Light nitrate and phosphate. This is mainly done by performing regular maintenance using a gravel siphon.
Vacuuming will turn over your substrate cutting off its access to light and remove nitrate and phosphate from your water. Put simply fish pump out ammonia while your aquariums beneficial bacteria converts that ammonia to nitrite and nitrate. As fish waste breaks down it produces more ammonia.
Its not something you can eliminate. Moreover its not really something you need to be aiming to eliminate. Use nets to remove uneaten food and debris rather than letting it settle on the base.
For marine tanks lay your sand out thinly on a tray and run over it with a powerful magnet before use. Its rare but occasional metal fragments in substrates are not unknown. Add one part of hydrogen peroxide to 5 parts of water.
Wash your gravel decoration and rocks with this solution. Hydrogen peroxide is not lethal and in fact harmless to sturdy fishes and plants. It however kills the worms eggs and larvae.
As the food breaks down it releases different gases which can cause a horrible smell in your home. The smell only gets worse as the uneaten food keeps building up. Make sure that your tank is maintained and is in good condition.
This includes cleaning the filter using gravel and obviously removing fish food from the bottom of the aquarium. Well bleach does kill algae almost instantly I use it to clean my air stones but putting bleach in that much gravel could result in bleach getting into the aquarium which could harm the fish I would go with the boiling method. Remove all decorations rocks and plants that arent rooted in the gravel etc from your tank.
Any filters heaters and equipment should be detached from the tank too. Unplug all the electric equipment. Use a cup to take the dirty gravel out and place almost all of it into a sieve.
Make sure to save a cup of two of the dirty gravel to set. Meaning before you try removing the excess poop from the substrate in your tank you may want to establish why that is to begin with. The first and the most common reason could be you are overfeeding your fish.
So try to reduce the amounts of food you place in the tank or reduce the frequency at which you feed the fish. Hi I have a 75 gal saltwater aquarium and 25 gal sump now I have a green hair algae all over on my rock I try to clean but it still come back I do water change weekly 15 I use RODI water I test the water and my PO4 is 003 and my NO3 is about 50 to 80 so I went to the local store and they told me to use nopox I just ordered I need help please. You should be left with the gravel and a small amount of water in the tank.
If you have an aquarium gravel cleaner Available to buy on amazon you can use that to suck any dirt hiding within the gravel. It will also remove the excess water. However you do not have to have a gravel cleaner to do this.
If you do not have an aquarium gravel cleaner you can instead mix the water.