PiscesGirl Posted December 28, 2008 Report Share Posted December 28, 2008 I have a lightly planted 20g freshwater community with neons, danios, cories, a BNP, amanos, trumpets and rams horns. Water changes have never been a problem as I only have 3 amanos and I could always see where they were. However, I recently added that clump of moss between the driftwoods which house some cherry shrimp, adults and babies. These guys are not shy as they venture all over the tank and I DESPERATELY need to do a water change, but am very worried about sucking up the cherries. How do I do this??? With a strong flow thru the aquavac, would I be able to keep it in one corner during the water change, or would I still need to vac all over? What are your opinions of giving into the school of thought that trumpets maintain the substrate and there is no need to gravel vac with them? Thanks for the advise!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedarkstar Posted December 29, 2008 Report Share Posted December 29, 2008 Put a net over the intake of the vac and you shouldn't have problems with sucking up the shrimp. As for the gravel, maybe before you do the vac, take the handle part of your net and stir up the gravel, then proceed to vacuum it. I've heard the MTS do a great job, but if you're that worried, go ahead and stir up the substrate before you vacuum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvision Posted December 29, 2008 Report Share Posted December 29, 2008 Your other option is to let your hose drain into a net, that way if they do get sucked out (they're usually pretty good at keeping away from the vacuum), you can just put them back into your tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PiscesGirl Posted December 29, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2008 (edited) Thanks for the advise guys, but I use an AquaVac... it connects directly to the faucet. I thought of put a net under that... but I highly doubt they would survive the trip as it comes out with quite a force. I just did a waterchange and kept it under the gravel in the center of the tank so it would suck the water thru the gravel only. Hopefully it was strong enough to pull some of the surrounding muck. There wasn't that much muck that initially got sucked up.. so either it didn't work or the trumpets are doing their thing. I'll monitor the water and fish and see if the job done was good enough, if not then I guess I will have to stir it up... hopefully without stirring up the plants!!! Thanks again! Edited December 29, 2008 by PiscesGirl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkangel Posted December 29, 2008 Report Share Posted December 29, 2008 With plants and MTS I never do a gravel sweep, Last time was about 6 months ago and the water came up pretty clean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedarkstar Posted December 29, 2008 Report Share Posted December 29, 2008 The other option, my next step, is to add a kuhli or two to my community to stir up some sand lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PiscesGirl Posted December 29, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2008 geez.. for a second I thought it was the same person who responded twice Thank you for your replies from the Dark Side.. do you have cookies??? I'm thinking that the trumpets are doing a pretty good job in there considering the amount of muck that came out.. them and my 10 cories... my little devil dusters I'm wanting to get tan coloured ColorQuartz for my planted tanks.. when/if I do, I'm ABSOLUTELY getting Khulis!! I hear they are not too impressed with gravel... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharuq1 Posted December 29, 2008 Report Share Posted December 29, 2008 (edited) My khulis don't mind the gravel at all, they dive right in and hide there most of the time. Not sure they are trustworthy with shrimp though? Edited December 29, 2008 by sharuq1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedarkstar Posted December 29, 2008 Report Share Posted December 29, 2008 My khulis don't mind the gravel at all, they dive right in and hide there most of the time. Not sure they are trustworthy with shrimp though? As far as I know, won't touch adults, but like evrything will most likely eat babies Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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