Newbie question...

[dpotts]

I have black gravel in the bottom of my 29g BC. It has gotten quite dirty and I was wondering if I could "vaccum" some of the dirt up?

[jc]

Yes. What kind of gravel? Cleaning up the bottom is a good thing. The less muck on the bottom rotting away the better. It's best to do this as part of your water change schedule.

[dpotts]

Great. I have "Super Naturals black gravel" in the bottom. I got it from my LFS. So how would one go about "vacuuming" the gravel?

[LoneStar]

Just create a siphon and use it to suck out all the detritus from the gravel bed. I use to drain it in a old 5g bucket. It allows you to do a water change at the same time.

[chrismunn]

they sell vaccum hoses for siphoning sandbed without actually removing the sand bed. its basically just a 1/2"clear polyvinyl hose attached to a 1 1/2" diameter x 6" long acrylic tube.

http://www.247petshop.com/product_display.jsp?Product_ID=FGRA2366

[Captain Jack]

And some people prefer to vaccum only 1/2 or 1/3 of the substrate during each waterchage. That way you're less likely to severly impact the population of good critters that might be in the substrate.