How do you clean the crud out of rock caves (rock piles)?

[Complexity]

Every time I do a water change, I find so much crud is inside the caves, it drives me crazy. I try to syphon off what I can. I use a large plastic spoon to "swish" the water to help push some of the crud out so I can syphon it out, but no matter what I do, the caves continue to be filled with crud.

What do you guys do to clean out that crud in your caves? Do you just leave what you can't suck out during a water change? Or do you have some kind of technique for getting it out?

[supadave]

I just use a small powerhead to blow all the crude and poop from under and behind my rocks. I use it pretty much like you would use a leaf blower.

[cichlid1409]

+1

i'll pull my k3 off the glass and blow everything out.

[Complexity]

I was thinking about doing something like that. How often do you do it? Before every water change?

[supadave]

I was thinking about doing something like that. How often do you do it? Before every water change?

Yep.

[Complexity]

I managed to find enough pieces to make one, and it's working great! I had an old sponge filter laying around that I had never used. Just put a hose on the end, and presto, my own cave blower!

My fish aren't too happy at the moment since it looks like a major snowstorm in the tank, but it's better for them in the long run.

I'm able to keep my filters running of course so they're helping to clean what's being tossed into the water column. I've put an extension on one of the intakes so it can grab the water from closer to the center of the tank. I also have an Eheim battery powered vacuum cleaner that I'm using to clean up the crud that's being blown out and falling onto the sand.

I don't expect the caves to be pristine, but this clean up was badly needed. I wish I had asked how to do this long ago. Thank you for your help!

[Complexity]

I've worked on it all day long, and I'm very pleased with results! I finished off with a water change, and I could see a huge difference in how everything remained clean even after refilling with new water.

I realized after doing this that it would be just as easy to configure it so I could put the hose on the output from one of my canister filters. It would do the very same thing without having to drag out the extra filter. I think I'll try that next time.

It wasn't fun for my fish, but it was definitely worth it. My yellow labs were so funny. At one point, they decided to try biting me to get me to stop! I guess they didn't like having maid service. But they sure seem to be enjoying the clean water now!

[supadave]