# Turning the substrate



## erijnal (Apr 5, 2006)

Hi, I did a search on this topic and wasn't able to find anything on it. Various people mention putting snails in their tanks to "turn" the substrate, which keeps it from compacting, I suppose.

So if you don't have any snails, is it recommended to sift through your substrate every so often (like every other week or something)? I have eco-complete and while I was doing some trimming, I decided to sift through the gravel. Sifting it buried some blue-green algae, and I know it's probably going to come back, but I just wanted to know if there's an advantage to doing it, and also how often it should be done, if beneficial. The only downside I see so far with my substrate is that the water gets cloudy and the particulate organic matter might settle on the plants, which will probably induce some algae.

Anyway, thanks in advance for your replies.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Stirring the substrate isn't a good idea unless you follow by changing a large percentage of the water to get rid of any unwanted chemicals that you release from the substrate - ammonia for example. Most people reccomend cleaning the upper part of the substrate every few weeks, but again, they also reccomend doing a big water change immediately after.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

I agree with Hoppy's recommendations but I have also seen it recommended to do cleaning or stirring of the substrate about once a year or so. It was recommended to do this in thirds of the tank and definately in conjunction with a water change. 

I did my tank this way earlier this year. Instead of "stirring" the substrate, I did a deep gravel vac with a Python. I used the flow control valve on the Python to regulate how fast the water was syphoned out so as not to syphon out either my sand or Eco Complete. I did this over the course of a month and during each weekly 50% water change.


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## chrisl (May 24, 2004)

Matt, did it make any difference?


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

I have to say I didn't really notice any difference. In all fairness, the substrate was in the tank for a year initially and then it was removed and rinsed when we moved to Dayton. It had been about another year or so when I did the deep gravel vac so it is hard to say if anything ever accumulated enough to cause any issues.


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

In a tank with plain gravel that had been setup for about two years I started getting strange plant symptoms; stems rotting, plants stopping growth, anubia leaves "dissolving", etc. etc.

I spent a couple of months trying everything possible thinking that it was some type of deficiency (at one point I even considered that there was something in the tap water that was now killing my plants).

Finally I got advice that since I'd tried everything else, it could be that the substrate was "sour". That it had accumulated so much mulm that the natural chemical/biological processes that occur in it were no longer occurring. And no, I never had bubbles coming out of my substrate smelling bad...

So I deep vacuumed the gravel and really gave it a good going over. Within two to three weeks the plants were back to normal and the symptoms disappeared.

I assume it was the gravel vacuum but sometimes one just doesn't quite know...


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## bioch (Apr 8, 2006)

what if you have sand covering your gravel?


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