Noob Question About Cleaning

Hi

Apologies if this seems a daft question, but if you 'carpet' the aquarium floor with Java Moss for instance, how do you clean the gravel underneath?

I think people may have not come across the question before and want to give the correct advice.
If you google your question most say take the moss out then hover, but that's just from google.

I don't know anything about planted tanks either!

This is a tricky one. I was hoping someone else would step-in and save me from putting my head on the block. But, since no-one has, I will have a go.

Generally you would clean the gravel around your plants.  You can't go around digging up each plant, vacuuming the gravel and then replanting it every few days. The assumption is that any stuff that gets too close to the roots of your plants will be used as plant-food. You just clean the open areas. If you have a general covering of some carpet-type plant, there are no open areas. In this case, I would clean it in the same way I would clean a sand substrate, just suck up any stuff on the top layer of your plants; anything that falls through will be plant food.

The trickiness here is that I am unsure about mosses. They don't grow roots in the same way that a 'normal' plant does. They just attach themselves to a piece of gravel. But, I don't see how you can go around vacuuming the hell out of a moss carpet without destroying it. So, I think I would treat it in the same way.