Cleaning the gravel: How do you do it?

[hypersushi]

If you have a heavily planted tank, how do you manage to clean the gravel? My siphon can only reach the places that have short midground to foreground plants. If I try to reach the densely planted background areas, I run the risk of uprooting the plants or even destroying them thru rough handling. Even with the foreground plants, they do get uprooted sometimes. So HOW do you clean your tank?

[Fei Miao]

Hi Welcome to AQ!
I would try to siphon as much as possible in the foreground, other than that I normall would give the plants a light bush with my hand to get the debris/dirt out and siphon them off, in thickly planted areas(like the blyxa amongst the rocks) I'll leave them be. Hope this helps!

[juggler]

Normally, I don't clean the gravel. I left the mulm in there as nutrients for the plants. If I do vacuum, I only clear up whatever unsightly mulm is on the surface.

[|squee|]

I wave my fingers to stir up surface muck. Any muck that gets away, too bad. It's supposedly good to have some muck anyway.

Shouldn't this be in equipment or something.. =x

[hypersushi]

I'm worried about leaving shit in the tank. Two weeks I didn't have time to clean the tank and two of my guppies are showing signs of dropsy. Though I measured Ammonia, Nitrate and Nitrates at very acceptable low levels, it still didn't prevent bacteria from infecting my fishes. That's why I'm wondering whether I did a proper job of cleaning all that poo and rotting vegetations. My tank is starting to be overrun by baby mollies, guppies and swordtails. Perhaps overcrowding? Need these babies to clear those damn algae...