Cleaning Between foreground plants

Hi all,

as I am sitting here and admire my tank... I started noticing some undissolved solids being kicked up into the water column by the corrys and started to wonder about cleaning....

I would like o know what you do with your foreground cover plants during maintenance? Do you syphon or what?

I am trying to limit the amount of undissoled solids in my water column... My filter is filtering the total water approx 7 times an hour...

And I also know that the dissolved solids being kicked up by the fish decreases the clarity of the water, which affects the light intensity the plants are experiencing.,..

Ok... so to explain my setup:



Ok... so to explain the flow inside my tank:



The pump in my sump is 3200lph.... and the small pump inside my tank is a small water pump (I can not remember the size of the pump).

I get quite nice flow over the plants... Most of the leaves move due to flow....

I have staurogyne repens as foreground cover...

What puzzles me is that when I look at photos of tank of the month or any other photos I do not see any extra pumps inside the tanks... How do they get the right flow? Or do they take it out only for the photos?

Can you please give me an indication of where I can improve my flow? I replaced my filter canister with my sump so that I can get rid of all the hardware inside the tank....

Where can I position hardware to increase the flow but isn't an eye sore...?

Thanx for the help everyone!!

 

I siphon caaarefully and regularly. Just start the siphoning on the wood or a solid object else the initial suction will uproot any plants that's not well rooted yet.

 

Most remove equipment for show photos.

Fun as this might sound .. I would remove the spray bar and only run the return that it cuts across the front of the tank, that way you get the current going around the tanks front glass past the filter / sump intake. The way you have the spray bar at the moment might not be creating a real circulating current just a storm... spray bars tend to make a tanks less clear from what I have seen. Give it a spin see if it helps.

Later Ferdie