# How clean is your tank?



## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

I was shaking a big Bolbitis bush in my 180 gal. tank last night. The mulm that came out of it made a huge mess. I did that 2-3 times in the span of about 2 hours. The mulm was less and less every time.

I bet ADA's tanks have very little or no mulm setling anywhere on the plants. There are a few reasons I say that. Do you know why?




























How about your plants?

--Nikolay


----------



## joshvito (Apr 6, 2009)

IMO:
I notice a similar thing. 

I think the majority of the mulm depends on the type of fish in the tank and the substrate. I use seachem flourite sand as a substrate with discus, and they disturb the substrate as they feed. A school of Neon tetras aren't gonna be disturbing as much substrate. Also, the amount of feedings will have a significant impact. Any who knows if Amano is using extra filtration in the evening in his tanks? Maybe he adds an extrat hang on filter each night when the store closes?


----------



## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

IMO, any tank left established for a significant time will develop mulm-build-up. It's just natural. Short term scapes, set up for a photo-op and then reworked, will not have that.

-Dave


----------



## Valley (Feb 28, 2007)

I'm running el natural. I have a lot of mulm. Not near as much as some El Natural people, but still, having "dirty" gravel seems so wrong to me. I'm used to fish only aquariums where you clean and clean and clean until it's spotless. I have finally come to terms with needing to leave some of the mulm alone. But I have taken to using an airline tube to clean up and spots it's accumulating (my anubias roots seem to be a magnet). Dirty floor, fine, dirty walls and cobwebs, not cool. Not cool at all!

I would guess ADA tanks probably have no mulm because they are entirely controlled. Cleaned just like a fish only tank, and then has clean ferts put in for the plants to feed on. Just a guess, never tried an ADA myself. Not yet anyway.


----------



## Big_Fish (Mar 10, 2010)

niko said:


> I bet ADA's tanks have very little or no mulm setling anywhere on the plants. There are a few reasons I say that. Do you know why?


because they are cared for 24/7 by a team of professional aquascapers (who obtained jobs at THE world premier aquascaping company.... call it a hunch but I'll bet they've been aquascaping for at least a couple weeks  ) who's JOB it is to make sure their tanks are spotless.
at least that's my assumption :whoo:


----------



## asukawashere (Mar 11, 2009)

I get a lot of mulm, and mess, and general accumulated crud. But, I tend to have mostly bigger (and therefore messier) fish and/or fish that frequently kick up the dirt in the substrate - discus, angels, ancistrus plecos, fairy cichids. My plants don't seem to object, and as long as the filters are good and the plants are sufficiently nitrate-sucking, the fish aren't bothered, either. I think constantly poking around to get rid of the dirt is more bothersome and upsetting to the plants and the fish than leaving it there, though - it's just a matter of our own aesthetic that demands we try to clean it.

As for ADA, I'm of the same opinion as everyone else: you (assuming you're like most of us hobbyist types) don't have an entire staff whose careers are devoted to making sure the tanks are spotless (or, if you do, you should maybe consider firing them for slacking off - lol!). Also, certain types of plants have an annoying knack for accumulating dirt. I don't have any Bolbitis to compare, but perhaps that's the case with them. Maybe try siphoning gently around the base of the rhizome next time you clean the tank.


----------



## houseofcards (Feb 16, 2005)

I still can’t figure out why when your trying to make a point about ADA tank philosophy you show either gallery pictures or pictures of tanks that were setup just for Photo Ops and then try to make us think there might be some ‘Magic Bullet’ to make this all happen. Most of the tanks you’re showing probably don’t even have fish in them long-term. They are usually put in right before the pic is taken, hence the tight schooling effect. 

Obviously mulm is accumulated in greater frequencies based on fish load, etc. So the best combination to have less mulm is to have a light fish load and do regular maintenance. Now I think you might be headed toward saying something that the mulm is still there, but it’s not on the plant leaves where it will eventually cause problems, but in the substrate where the plants are making good use of it. And this of course is a result of the positioning of the lily pipes that make all this possible.


----------



## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

How do we know the Japanese clean these tanks every day? 

How do we know that the showroom tanks are not the norm if you do what they suggest doing?

My first planted CO2-tank in about 2003 had zero mulm. The tank looked almost artificial. All I did was 10% water change a week. Very little fish. About 20 Amano shrimp. No fertilization. I trimmed about 2 lbs. of stem plants every 2 weeks or so. 

My point is - yes it is possible to have a completely pristine tank without daily work. I've seen tanks like that in Houston. I don't know how much work they required but I'm talking tanks that looked like they had no water in them, just plants and CO2 bubbles raising up in "thin air".

As far as ADA is concerned someone told me I sound like I advertise them as there is no tomorrow. I don't. What I'm doing is pushing toward more knowledge in this hobby. I can, and I have, said some pretty critical things about ADA. One of them is that they don't seem to really care about giving more knowledge to the English speaking hobbyists.

So how is that Lily Pipe positioned that it doesn't stir the mulm? How are the fish chosen? Any other things we should know?

--Nikolay


----------



## queijoman (Jun 23, 2008)

The tanks in the picture have all small populations of fish, which should produce little mulm. If I were to try and make a strategy for the mulm to get cleaned up by a filter then I would probably make some kind of circular current in the tank so that the mulm would all be directed to the center like a mini-tornado and put a filter intake there to receive it.


----------



## joshd (Oct 16, 2009)

So one thing that didn't get brought up is fish food. I would think that a better food would:

1) float longer so the fish could consume all of it 
2) be digested by the fish more thoroughly (i.e. less fish poo) 
3) not break down in the water (also creating mulm). 

Part of the reason I bring this up is because I have just gotten to the bottom of a large container of flake food. The food is much more crushed, and I feel like I am seeing more mulm in the tank (even though I am trying to feed the fish less). Since it is crushed, it seems to break down in the water quickly, it doesn't float as long for my fish, and its old enough that it may not be as good of food.

I think that the type of fish would also have an effect on this as some are much messier as said earlier. I have never tried the ADA fish food but I would guess that like most of their other products it is top notch. Let me know if you think I am plum crazy!


----------



## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

About the fish food and the choice of fish (species, count):

Some fish do not pollute the water at all. At least not with visible waste. A common example are Cardinal tetras. But I do think that the cleanest fish I've ever seen must be a pigmy cory - Coridoras hastatus. These fish eat a lot, really a ton of food. But they never leave any visible waste on the bottom of a bare bottom glass tank. I think that the choice of fish will have an impact on how clean the tank is. Nothing new really, just it would be nice to know which fish pollutes more.

Some years ago I did some testing on about 10 or so different kinds of food. I checked the N and P in the water after using this or that food. I could not find any food that raised N. All of them raised P, some considerably. My point is that food should probably be viewed as not just adding waste, but rather creating a disbalance - adding more of certain waste to the aquarium.

And another simple to understand but never discussed thing - if a tank contains different animals, carefully chosen, it tends to stay cleaner. Example: A tank with only fish may accumulate mulm on the bottom. Adding snails slightly reduces the mulm - mainly because the snails process some of the mulm and add their own. Adding Amano shrimp seems to help a bit further - Amanos produce pretty big sized waste. What really, really makes the mulm disappear is adding dwarf shrimp. The same tank with no Amanos (just fish, snails and dwarf shrimp) has more mulm. Basically something like a processing conveyor needs established so the waste from every animal gets broken down by the next in line. It appears that the choice of the animals has a role too - some seem to produce waste that is broken down easier. Such a setup in which the animals are carefully chosen is never discussed as a way to combat accumulating waste.

And of course there is more - flow, flow pattern, biofilter.

--Nikolay


----------



## Elohim_Meth (Nov 4, 2007)

I think CEC of substrate plays huge role in preventing of mulm accumulation on the plants. Substrates with high CEC (cation exchange capacity) hold the mulm inside.
Previously when I had the tank with a plain gravel, there was lot of mulm on the plants, it was clearly visible when shaking stems. Now I have two tanks, one with AquaSoil and other with earthworm castings on bottom and gravel above, and neither of them has no mulm visible.


----------



## bartoli (May 8, 2006)

joshd said:


> Part of the reason I bring this up is because I have just gotten to the bottom of a large container of flake food. The food is much more crushed, and I feel like I am seeing more mulm in the tank (even though I am trying to feed the fish less). Since it is crushed, it seems to break down in the water quickly, it doesn't float as long for my fish, and its old enough that it may not be as good of food.


Back in those days when I was feeding flakes to my fish, I always crushed the flakes into tiny bits ahead of time. There are several reasons for doing that.

First, the same amount of flakes in tiny bits spread out much more evenly than in bigger pieces. Thus, one does not have to overfeed in order to ensure that every fish gets its share.

Second, flakes in tiny bits start to sink sooner. Thus, less likely for the dominant fish to get an unfair share of the food.

Third, flakes in a larger size increase the chance that any one fish may get a big mouthful and therefore doing a head-stand afterward. By breaking flakes into tiny bits and then pre-soaking them, head-stand is avoided.



joshd said:


> I have never tried the ADA fish food but I would guess that like most of their other products it is top notch.


ADA does not provide an ingredient list for their food (http://www.adgshop.com/Fish_Food_s/53.htm). I like to know what I am feeding my fish.

BTW, one day I went to a LFS to get some spirulina flake. They were out of stock. The store did have a popular brand flake with the words "spirulina enhanced" printed on the bottle. But when I looked into the ingredient list, the word spirulina was nowhere to be found!


----------



## bartoli (May 8, 2006)

niko said:


> And another simple to understand but never discussed thing - if a tank contains different animals, carefully chosen, it tends to stay cleaner.


Good point! Pond snail is a big helper for keeping my gravel clean.


----------



## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Some animals should be seen as part of the filtration system of the tank. Actually I think they should be mandatory if you want to both help the biofilter and have a very clean tank.

Snails do dig the gravel and help it stay clean but from my experience if it's practical it's best to have fish that actually bury themselves and move under the gravel. Some time ago I had a tank which had completely clean gravel - if you stuck the vacuum in it nothing came out, just water. Not a single piece of dirt. At first I couldn't believe it and stuck the vacuum in several places all over the tank. Same thing - clean water and no dirt anywhere. There was one loach-looking fish that dug in the gravel and "swam" under it. I guess the fish was very active and was actually disturbing all the mulm in the gravel and the filter was able to suck it all up.

That's an extreme example, but it shows how an animal can really do something we may find useful.

I'm still shaking that Bolbitis that I mentioned in the opening post. The tank has a big school of about 1" sized Moenkhausia costae and they eat a lot. I guess debries are an issue and there is noone to shake them off the plant leaves but me. Because of that situation I started to think that Amano shrimp will actually constantly disturb the settling mulm and once suspended and floating around it will find its way to the filter. That's one reason why I said that some animals should be seen as part of the filtration system of the tank. I guess fish could do the same kind of "mulm stirring" but I think the Amanos will be much more thorough.

Funny thing in that tank there is mulm settling on the Bolbitis leaves but I've reduced the pounds of BBA to nothing through water changes and Excel. The first time I scrubbed BBA I collected about 2 lbs after I squeezed the water out of it! Now it's about 99% gone. I believe that BBA shows up when there are organcs present. In my case (adding Excel + 30% water change every 3 days + seeing mulm accumulating) I don't have a good explanation why BBA is going away. Maybe that mulm settling on the Bolbitis is minerilzed in some way or something.

--Nikolay


----------



## Karebear (Oct 6, 2008)

I have 2 tanks, one is a 58 gal with CO2, there is nooooo mulm build up in it. I have quit trying to gravel vac while doing my 50% water change. I dose EI and have an inert sand substrate. I am fighting alagea because I am not on top of my fert dosing. Filtration is a canister filstar that was a freebee and to make it more interesting I have a aquaclear foam filter over the intake to keep shrimpies from being sucked up.

Livestock is:

school of 6-9 cardnils
school of 5 rasbora hetramorphs
school of 5 jelly beans
3 cpd
4 norman lamperi killies
pigmy cories? if any still left
2 albino longfin plecos
cherry shrimp
and a few unwantd snails

Now my 100 gal discus tank is another story,
5 adult discus, rosy barbs, clown loach, gold/green cories and lots and lots of mulm.

The difference is the livestock load and shrimpies, although I have tanks at work with shrimpies and lots of mulm.


----------



## queijoman (Jun 23, 2008)

Would having blackworms living in the substrate have any effect on mulm?


----------

