Cleaning the hiding place

[MTS]

When you clean your tank, how do you handle cleaning the caves and hiding places for your loaches? I hate to disturb them but I should move the rocks and their favorite plastic cave to vacuum. Any good way to do this?

[shari2]

I only do it once in a while (not too often), and only one place at a time. Then I put it back the way I found it and get out of the way--fast!

[Emma Turner]

If you use a sand substrate (rather than gravel, where detritus easily collects) and have a really good flow rate in the tank, most of the waste should get drawn into the filter. In this sort of set-up the loaches will benefit from the soft substrate and flow, plus you won't have to move decor around too often (if at all) to clean any bits off the bottom of the tank.

Emma

[fishy_friend]

Do one cave at a time so they have a place to hide. They never like to be bothered, but tanks do need to be cleaned!

[Martin Thoene]

I'm with Emma. Apart from the fact that I seldom vacuum anyway in any of my tanks, the Clown tank has never been vacced in over a year because of the sand and lots of current. The filters get loads of junk in them quite quickly though. It just doesn't sit around in the tank.

Martin.

[MTS]

Thank you all for your comments.

I have gravel in the tank so I need to vacuum but I'll try to leave them a hiding place and rotate the areas I clean. I have sand in my African cichlid tank but it was such a pain to wash the sand at setup that I went with gravel in this tank. The decision to put loaches in the tank was not well thought out (but I'm glad I have them). I'll use sand when I get the larger tank.

[chefkeith]

With sand, my clown loaches are constantly doing their own house cleaning. They just wiggle their tail fins around real fast, which in turn blows all the dirt/debris out of their caves.