Cleaning sand bottom

[Chris(wildcaught!)]

Those of you who have fine sand in the tanks, how do you keep it clean. I would prefer to have the sand stay in the tank, but this seems to be troublesome with normal vacuumcleaning (hope this is the right word, u probably know what i mean anyway).

Regards / Chris

 

[Chris(wildcaught!)]

Someone must surely have an idea about this.

What I do in my tank is to carefully vacuumclean the sand, the problem is that some sand always follows the water down to the drain, this is what i try to avoid.

Any replies welcome!

Regards / Chris

 

[Apistt_ed]

hi chris,

sorry it took so long for anyone to reply... ok, here's the thing that I do and have found to be ok for my tanks which have sand as substrate. instead of digging the hose into the sand and all, use a thin layer to start of with and just keep the hose within inches of the top layer of the sand so it picks up just the wastes. yes you'll lose some sand, but you can eyeball it so you don't lose a lot. With sand, its easier to have a more well, planned planted tank. plants in my tanks usually get in the way, so I just use java moss or anubias. give that a try and see how it does. Thats how I've been cleaning my sand substrate tanks since the beginning.

 

[Griz]

There is a technique to this but with a bit of practice it's not difficult. I just use a length of tubing (no vacuum attachment thingy) and hover the end just slightly above the sand. I move the end of the hose back and forth in order to stir up the waste slightly, just enough that it will get it off the bottom and vacuum it up without taking very much sand with it.