After gradually thinning out my gravel I eventually went totally bare bottom a couple of months ago. If you don't have a powerhead then the poop just lays on the bottom and, due to there being no gravel to disguise it, it sticks out like a sore thumb and looks very unsightly.
So I got a powerhead and then the bottom of my tank was always pristine. However, I realised that all I was doing was sweeping all the poop under the carpet. Meaning it was still in the system creating nitrate. I wanted to address this issue so did a couple of weeks of tests.
My powerhead is on a timer. It is off all night so when I come down first thing in the morning any poop that's on the bottom would usually stay there until the powerhead came on and blew it down into the sump. I took advantage of this and now what I do every morning is manually suck the poop out with a home made syphon so it's completely out of the closed loop system.
This has worked wonders for my water quality. Instead of once a week 80% water changes I now do an 80% water change every 11 days. Nitrate build up has fallen off massively since I started sucking all the poop out.
So I got a powerhead and then the bottom of my tank was always pristine. However, I realised that all I was doing was sweeping all the poop under the carpet. Meaning it was still in the system creating nitrate. I wanted to address this issue so did a couple of weeks of tests.
My powerhead is on a timer. It is off all night so when I come down first thing in the morning any poop that's on the bottom would usually stay there until the powerhead came on and blew it down into the sump. I took advantage of this and now what I do every morning is manually suck the poop out with a home made syphon so it's completely out of the closed loop system.
This has worked wonders for my water quality. Instead of once a week 80% water changes I now do an 80% water change every 11 days. Nitrate build up has fallen off massively since I started sucking all the poop out.