Tanks with lots of rockwork.

[Mettle]

How does one clean a tank with a lot of rockwork (or driftwood for that matter) properly? I'm having a bit of that issue in my tank right now (38 gal) with my driftwood. I would assume some of the folks with Africans would encounter something similar.

Just curious about how people manage it.

[kennyman]

I changed from a stacked wall of rock near the back of the tank to a piled mound of rock in the center. Now I can clean all the glass with a sponge each week. And its much a more authentic structure with smaller deeper places for my fish to get into.

[Julie]

There's no way to properly clean without removing the wood.

Julie

[darkdep]

Putting the rockwork in the centre is a good start.  That's what I do so the back glass / gravel is accessible.  

But, as Julie stated, you can't really clean a tank normally with all that stuff in there.  So, I deal with it with the combination of a good cleaning crew (couple of BN plecos in every tank in my case), keeping live plants (to absorb the nutrients the Algae use), and not worrying about a little algae on the rocks (which, unless it's crazy, looks more natural anyway).

I used to do a complete rockwork removal / clean routine about once a month, but that got old quickly (although it had some side benefits...since I could never remember how I had built the pile, the tank was constantly changing and it helped with the African territorial issues).  Something I've experimented with recently is using Silicone to build rock structures so that removing the entire rockwork is only a matter of pulling out 2-4 pieces.  

One last thing...you can't get a gravel vac into the caves most of the time, so if I have my hands in there cleaning gravel anyway, I'll usually just stir it up with my fingers to get some of the dirt out and into the water, which I'll then vac away.

[NjOyRiD]

dont you think it  looks better when the rocks on dirty, just liek the nature?

[luvfishies]

dont you think it  looks better when the rocks on dirty, just liek the nature?

Oh absolutely, but getting UNDER that large driftwood or under the large pile of rocks is needed, but hard to do. One should really get under all the decor at least once a month while doing a waterchange/gravel vac or you risk nasty stuff happening in the gravel.

[darkdep]

You can also get some MTS (Malaysian Trumpet Snails, not Multiple-Tank Syndrome).  They do a good job digging through the unreachable areas of the substrate and preventing the nasty things from happening.

[Julie]

I'm afraid to ask what issue you're having.  Have you lost any yet?

Julie

[Nelson]

I noticed some time ago that my moponi wood would get jet black over several months.  I decided to remove it and give it a cleaning with a brush and couldn't believe the black stuff that was removed - the smell was pretty wicked as well.  Cleaning also restored the natural brown look of the wood.  Now I clean all my wood every 6 months, which also affords the opportunity to vacuum in those inaccessible places where the wood was sitting.  An incredible amount of waste is sucked up from there as well.

[Julie]

It seems to rot after a while, I threw mine out.

Julie

[NjOyRiD]

i just prefer the dirt and the natural look, all dirty miamz

[Nelson]

It seems to rot after a while, I threw mine out.

Julie

Are you saying that you think moponi rots....or "regular" driftwood?

[Julie]

I had a piece in my tank, probably came from the ottawa river.

Julie

[Nelson]

I had a piece in my tank, probably came from the ottawa river.

Julie

Yep, over time common drift wood will rot for sure, but moponi doesn't rot (won't in my lifetime at least)

[Julie]

Nelson, that was a trick question.

Julie

[Julie]

Mettle here's a little piece from the krib:

Re: 55 gallon Tank, New to Apistos, You make the Call!!
by Ken Laidlaw <K.Laidlaw/roe.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998
To: apisto/majordomo.pobox.com

> I too had some drift wood in a 55 gallon apisto tank. The problem I had with
> it is it consistently got fungused and there was no way I could keep it
> clean even with scrubbing.

If drift wood gets fungussed like this then it is not
completely dead (don't know the details) and should not be
used.   It is probably best to use bog wood (not drift) or
the stuff they are selling in the UK at the moment which is
called Mopani wood.  It is a light colour when you buy it
but it soon becomes water logged and dark in colour.  It
doesn't get fungussed.

Ken.

[Mettle]

I'm not having any issues. Just curious little questions like this pop into my head sometimes and I figure it's a good opportunity to get some dialogue going on it. I've also been considering doing an African set-up, and I'd definitely want to do some nice rockwork in there, but was curious about it all. And of course with my current tank I was wondering if anyone had easier ways of getting into those hard to reach corners other than simply tearing everything out. Ouch, what a headache THAT is. Heh.

[Julie]

Try to put as little substrate as possible where the wood is, or you could even leave it bare in that area.

Julie

[darkdep]

The issue with that Julie is that the Africans are big diggers.  If you're doing any sort of rockwork that involves multiple pieces, you generally want a fairly thick substrate and dig the rocks down into it.  If you don't, you risk them digging down and toppling things.  If you use a thin substrate to avoid this, it'll drive you crazy constantly looking at "bare glass" spots on the bottom of your tank.

[Julie]

I know Dark, but he's got an sa also.

Julie