Help with annoying sand
- Thread starter RemainVayne
- Start date
Hmmmm I can't remember the grain, but I know it was on the finer side.
How much of a mess/pain is it to add new sand to an existing tank? I've never had to do that before...
Not so bad. Rinse the new sand in a bucket in your bathtub a bunch to get the dust off so it doesn't cloud your water. Then just add to tank. Can remove the old sand if you want.
When I rinse new sand, I do a water change, and siphon old fish water into the new sand, stirring the dust into solution, then dumping the old water and dust as the bucket fills.
And add the new wet sand sand by dropping it thru a piece of PVC pipe almost the height of the tank, to direct sand exactly where I want it to go, and creating a less sand storm effect.
If you use the venturi feature on the power heads, this usually reducese flow by about 20%, but at the same time, the air forced thru creates great surface agitation.
And add the new wet sand sand by dropping it thru a piece of PVC pipe almost the height of the tank, to direct sand exactly where I want it to go, and creating a less sand storm effect.
If you use the venturi feature on the power heads, this usually reducese flow by about 20%, but at the same time, the air forced thru creates great surface agitation.
After cleaning, i also like to place the sand / substrate into a small jug and transferring it directly into the tank...
I do this by filling a container (or jug) 1/2 - 3/4 full with substrate and slowly lower it into the tank at an angle allowing water to fill the jug up...
From there i push the container all the way into the tank (placing it as close to the bottom) and pour... This should help keep the remaining dust particles from going all over the tank making it super cloudy...
I do this by filling a container (or jug) 1/2 - 3/4 full with substrate and slowly lower it into the tank at an angle allowing water to fill the jug up...
From there i push the container all the way into the tank (placing it as close to the bottom) and pour... This should help keep the remaining dust particles from going all over the tank making it super cloudy...
I haven't had issues with mesh size #20, never did like the smaller sizes like #40 or #60.
Not sure what it means from a size standpoint, but the extra bag of sand I have says it's a 16/30
Another solution would be to promote crosscurrents with additional circulation pumps. You're getting a barrel-shaped flow in your tank and it's causing the sand to do what sand does. Break that flow up somehow. Additional diffusers would help.
When I put black diamond in my tank I did not rinse it with water (which is what everyone does.) That's because the dust contains machine oil of the air tools they used to chisel the stuff off the walls of the blast furnace.
The thing to do is buy the coarsest mix you can find and run it through a window screen dry. Keep the coarse grains and toss everything else in the garden. Now when you add it to your tank you'll find you have about one-tenth of the oil slick that you would normally get.
This also means you throw away up to half of the sand, depending on how coarse you like it, but what you get in the end looks far nicer and it doesn't blow around easily.
I also agree that a deeper bed and additional decorations in strategic locations well help to alleviate this by promoting a little turbulence in the tank instead of strong directional flows.
When I put black diamond in my tank I did not rinse it with water (which is what everyone does.) That's because the dust contains machine oil of the air tools they used to chisel the stuff off the walls of the blast furnace.
The thing to do is buy the coarsest mix you can find and run it through a window screen dry. Keep the coarse grains and toss everything else in the garden. Now when you add it to your tank you'll find you have about one-tenth of the oil slick that you would normally get.
This also means you throw away up to half of the sand, depending on how coarse you like it, but what you get in the end looks far nicer and it doesn't blow around easily.
I also agree that a deeper bed and additional decorations in strategic locations well help to alleviate this by promoting a little turbulence in the tank instead of strong directional flows.
That means that the sand will pass through a 16 mesh/inch sieve but not a 30 mesh sieve.
The grains will be between 1/32 and 1/16 in approximately.
