sifting sand in planted tank

[convict360]

Just wondered how people sift their sand, gravel vac etc in heavily planted tanks?

I recently set up a thick later of clay and sphagnum moss underneath my normal sand substrate, and while I want to sift the sand to keep it clean; don't really want to disturb the under layer.

I'm assuming the solution is to lightly sift the top layer?

 

[typicalalex1]

The waste will sit on top of the sand so there's no need to go digging around in the sand.

I use a garden hose to vacuum the top layer of the sand. A smaller hose is much easier as is sucks with more power than a larger gravel vac. Some sand will be sucked up but its unavoidable.

You could try adding powerheads / wavemakers which are aimed at the substrate to help push the waste to the filter intake and eliminate dead spots to reduce the need to sift the top layer of the sand.

I've been playing around with wavemakers recently and since i've added one, i haven't cleaned my substrate once as the waste doesn't settle on the sand.

 

[monkeybike]

Add a few mts snails too, they will sift and turn over the sand to keep it from packing. Generally they won't bother plants.

 

[Manu8__too]

Many of us don't gravel vac in heavily planted tanks. By heavily planted, I'm referring to tanks that have very few areas of exposed substrate. In heavily planted tanks, healthy root systems feed off of the waste that accumulates on the substrate. Granted, I also perform large weekly wc's (75%) in order to minimize the accumulation of dissolved organics. Below is an updated picture of my "heavily planted" tank. I haven't gravel vac'd in over 3 months.

 

[convict360]

Many of us don't gravel vac in heavily planted tanks. By heavily planted, I'm referring to tanks that have very few areas of exposed substrate. In heavily planted tanks, healthy root systems feed off of the waste that accumulates on the substrate. Granted, I also perform large weekly wc's (75%) in order to minimize the accumulation of dissolved organics. Below is an updated picture of my "heavily planted" tank. I haven't gravel vac'd in over 3 months. View attachment 1164964

beautiful tank as always, cheers for the answer; I hope to get a good carpet going so that's a good help!

 

[xxUnRaTeDxxRkOxx]

With my planted tanks I've never used any sort of gravel vac, I let it "dissolve" naturally because as previously stated plants will use the nutrients in the waste. However, weekly water changes are necessary when following any dosing regime because it "helps to keep things in check"... Such as nitrates, high nitrates can be fatal to fish but live plants use the nitrogen in the nitrates as it's one of the NPK Macro nutrients, but doing weekly water changes you're eliminating the amounts of nitrates preset in the water and then "building" them back up with the dosing regime.