# Cleaning without disturbing substrate?



## jeffro0050 (Apr 4, 2010)

Hey guys, been battling a brown algae bloom that I'm pretty confident is being caused by decayed plant matter in my gravel. I did a major pruning earlier today and ended up causing a lot of floating particles- likely both brown algae along with plant parts both new and from an earlier die back. 

I was hoping I could avoid really risking my substrate escaping while I clean the gravel,but it pretty much HAS to be done to grab all the excess waste that I am sure is there. Did about a 50% water change today because I was getting afraid of ammonia build-up and noticed that tell tale pond smell. 


Any advice? I've cleaned regular gravel several times so I know about siphoning it- I have a layer of mixed soil substrate beneath the gravel.


----------



## NursePlaty (Feb 5, 2010)

jeffro0050 said:


> Hey guys, been battling a brown algae bloom that I'm pretty confident is being caused by decayed plant matter in my gravel. I did a major pruning earlier today and ended up causing a lot of floating particles- likely both brown algae along with plant parts both new and from an earlier die back.
> 
> I was hoping I could avoid really risking my substrate escaping while I clean the gravel,but it pretty much HAS to be done to grab all the excess waste that I am sure is there. Did about a 50% water change today because I was getting afraid of ammonia build-up and noticed that tell tale pond smell.
> 
> ...


*Yea brown algae usually appears after new tanks are set up if you used a soil substrate. It happened to me too. I think about after 2-3 weeks the brown algae all went away. I lightly siphon the top layer of my gravel because I too have a soil based substrate beneath my gravel. And disturbing that lower section would cloud my water. *


----------



## WhiteGloveAquatics (Sep 3, 2009)

diatom algae, good stuff just unsightly.

can you swirls the gravel vac an fw inches above the gravel surface to get that crap up into the water column for easier removal?


----------



## jeffro0050 (Apr 4, 2010)

Thanks guys, going to buy a Vac tube with a much smaller diameter so I don't yank stuff up too quickly.


----------



## flyin-lowe (Oct 3, 2009)

How long are you leaving your lights on and what kind of lighting do you have? I started to get brown algae in my tank and without knowing any better I cut the timer on my lights from 10 hours to 8 hours. Somebody told me the brown algae can be caused by not enough light so I moved it from 8 hours to 12 hours and it went away pretty quickly.


----------

