African Tank Cleaning

[Magicide]

Seeing the pictures of all the beautiful African tanks people have I am sorely tempted to try one of my own. The only thing is I see alot of people have a large amount of rock on the bottom of the tank. How do you go about cleaning that?

With my community tank it's a simple matter to siphon the gravel around the plant roots and pull up alot of nasty junk. But with all that rock how could you be sure that you don't have who knows what growing beneath the rocks where both fish and yourself can't get access to clean?

I know I could just set up a few rock piles inside such that I could get access to clean them but I'm curious how people with a near total rock bottom manage to keep their tanks clean.

[Vallisneria]

I have rock piles in my african tank and when i do my weekly water change i just gravel vac around them as best i can. Then every couple months or so when i have to catch fish(usually holding females) i remove some of the rocks to make it easier to catch them and do a good vac in the process.

I've never had too much bad stuff in my rock piles. They are a bit dirty underneath but nothing too bad.

So if you clean under your rocks every once and a while you should be ok.

[dunl]

Have a fairly deep sand bed, and keep pushing the sand around the rocks. Cichlids enjoy digging, and will dig it all back out for you. Helps to keep anything from building up there.

[Cap'n]

Turkey baster works well to push all the accumulated crap out of the dead spots in the rock. I use one to spray all the surfaces of the rocks, in the plants, corals, everywhere there is any build-up. Gets it into the water column for removal with a siphon.

[thefishdude]

I like to remove the rocks every month to month and a half and re-arrange. Helps to cut down on aggression (everyone has a chance at the new caves) and it gets all the junk out of the cracks and crevices. I know that some people never change the rockwork in their tank but I prefer to keep it new and creative. Either that or I haven't found the perfect arrangement yet.. :shifty:

[African_Fever]

I never really worry too much about the buildup in and around my rocks, but when I do a really good cleaning, I'll use a powerhead to blow all the material out from under/around them and into the open. Then it's just a matter of using your regular siphon and getting the gunk out.

All my rocks in my tanks with any amount of sand are placed on 'tables' made out of granite. The fish are able to dig under the tables and have their own cave without worrying about the rocks all collapsing or having big unsightly piles of sand everywhere (I have live plants in all my African tanks - by placing 'walls' around the tables, the sand doesn't fall back in, so once they've got their cave dug you can even out the sand and nothing falls back in the cave). You can get the granite for free from any place that does granite counters. I break it up with a hammer into the sizes that I need, and then glue it together using silicone.