Cleaning under rockscape

Do you ever remove your rocks or decorations and do a thorough cleaning?  How often?

I usually use my hand to move water around the base of the rocks and get the debris stirred up and out where I can vacuum it, but I know I can't get it all that way, especially around lace rock. Every nook and cranny holds poop!

Because I keep African cichlids and they can be so aggressively territorial, I try not to move anything around in their tanks that will cause them to start fighting over their spaces. Just moving sand around and water changes sets them off! I've had to move a rock occasionally and am always surprised at how much stuff is around or under them, even though I have the rocks sitting directly on the bottom of some of the tanks, with the substrate around them. (I use egg crate in other tanks.)

I know how you feel Betty. With larger Cichlids its not as bad with the territorial issues. I usually will move the siphon tube in a circular motion to try and get most of it to come out.

You always think your tank is clean till you pick up the rocks. 

It can get pretty tough, when I rescape in the future, I plan on using an industrial rock cutter to make a completely flat surface for the rocks to sit on, so nothing can get underneath and also makes the rock more stable. For now, after I remove all of the waste sitting on top of the sand, I use a turkey baster to push/blast out any waste hiding in small crevices. With the weight and size of my rocks, I don't plan on cleaning under them, but it's the more reason for me to be on top of my game with daily maintenance with the waste

I am always amazed at how much can get under the rocks, even with weekly cleanings and what not. You would think if a rock has sand all the way around the base how does it get under there? It's part of the reason I have cut back on the rock in my tank..

Honestly I think you could silicone a flat rock to the glass at it would still find a way in..   

i swear my fish dig holes under the rocks specifically to store their poop... no matter what i do certain rocks just seem to gather more waste then others. its a pain to clean the rocks but most of the time ill pull out my smaller rocks (anything under 1-2lbs) and just dunk em in abucket to get any sand/waste off them. then ill just do a water change now that i can see most of the hidey holes. then just put it all back together. i only do this about once a month as its time consuming.

I don't pull rocks except when I'm pulling fish for some reason other wise my rocks stay in my tanks. If I have a dead spot (where poo accumulates) I use the same method as Sonic and use a turkey baster and blast around the rock to get the poo where I can clean it up with a vac.

When I'm doing a big fish pull I take the opportunity to pull my rocks, clean the substrate, stir everything up and put the rocks back in a newly designed scape. The last time I did this in my 125G tank I was amazed at how LITTLE poo I had hiding in the tank. I have lots of rocks but I also have 3 filters on the tank (two canisters and one HOB). I have a powerhead positioned at one end of the tank and one of the canister intakes is at the other end while the 2nd is on the powerhead side. I think the powerhead really keeps things stirred up so that not much poo accumulates. I like it   

Yeah as Donna said, with good circulation and knowing the shape/placement of your rocks, you get to know where the dead spots are after a week or two of PWC and blasting areas where there may be some waste hiding ^_^

Anthraxx, I think mine do too.    And I know they wait until they see me remove the siphon and start refilling and then all decide they need to poop!

Thanks everyone for your input.  I think I do about the same as most of you.  Instead of a baster, I like to use my hand to push the poop out and around the rocks.  I know where the collection points are and concentrate on those areas.  But even with a minimal amount of substrate, I still find crap under those rocks -- especially the lace rock.  I have powerheads in two of my tanks, but there are still so many rock piles that there are areas that I can only move water through by pushing water through with my hand.  In four of my tanks, the majority of my rocks have not been moved in years.

I've got 2 spraybars that push water in a circular motion, top to bottom and back to front. That combined with a hefty circulation pump in one corner and dosing Rid-X on a regular basis insures that almost no solids accumulate in the tank.