Keeping Sand Cleaner? Pleco

[mike37909]

All,
I have a 220 72x24x30. I used to have pea rock from lowes but i noticed the pebbles let the food disappear down in the substrate and build up. I went bare bottom for a couple weeks and I liked the cleanliness but for looks I switched to quickcrete pool filter sand.

I like the look but unfortunately the substrate shows pleco poop so bad. Yeah I screwed up and got a regular pleco he is probably 8 inches now. I might have to give him to LFS or someone. I had a bristlenose but it never really grew it was tiny and then disappeared. I never see any other plecos at the LFS.

My filters are marineland C-530, C-360 canisters and a AC 110.

I was thinking about getting some koralias and alternate the flow with a timer(s) or then I thought maybe I should hang another AC110 or two. Probably cost similar but im not sure.

Also is there an ideal way to set up the inlets and returns on canisters to get the poop to suspend in the water and be sucked up.

I have:
12 inch oscar
6 inch gold severum
(3) 5 inch pictus cats
firemouth
5 inch salvini
6 inch dempsey
8 inch pleco
10 giant danios
2 anglefish

 

[jaws7777]

Tank seems a little underfiltered I would definitely increase filtation and read the probiotics sticky. That stuff works and will help breakdown waste

 

[mike37909]

Thanks i also have a big sponge filter. I will check out the probiotics sticky.

I have been studying the jabao wavemakers might get 2 of those.

 

[skjl47]

unfortunately the substrate shows pleco poop so bad. Yeah I screwed up and got a regular pleco he is probably 8 inches now

Hello; I had a 14inch pleco and know of what you speak. Long strings of poo. I made it less unsightly by adding some Ramshorn snails.
My thinking was that the pleco liking a veggie based diet has poo with a lot of undigested food material. Some vegetarians have poo that is still a large % undigested food.

The snails worked over the pleco poo and turned it into much finer snail poo and a lot of snails. The snail poo was not so ugly and a bit easier to siphon out. I also figure it is better for the pleco poo and any other organic matter to pass thru a digestive system than to rot.

As the snails got bigger I would feed them to my other fish. (Note- keep a set of pliers or hemostats to crush the snail shells. The shells will cut fingers.) Fresh live food.

 

[mike37909]

Thanks for the snail idea. I will read up on it and see if i can find some local. Aby other snails work for this?

 

[skjl47]

Thanks for the snail idea. I will read up on it and see if i can find some local. Aby other snails work for this?

Hello; First it may be that fish shops will give you some snails such as red Ramshorn, pond snails or MTS (Malaysian Trumpet Snails). These are very common and while some consider them pests I do not.
With sand the MTS may be a good choice as they will burrow thru the sand looking for organic bits to eat. They have such tough shells that I have not tried to use them as food.

Most any kind of snail will likely do the job. There are snails you will have to pay for. Some get large. Mystery snails and apple snails.
Some will not reproduce in fresh water but will live ok in fresh water such as Nitirite (SP). I have some of them because of the interesting shells. However it will take a bunch of them and they are not exactly cheap.

One additional note. The snail idea will help with the unsightly pleco poo but will not do much to reduce the cleaning effort you will still have to do. Some of the pleco poo will turn into snail meat but there will also be a lot of snail poo. Snail poo is much smaller and not stringy so looks sorta better. Still a chore.
I use a siphon with a large tube that narrows down into a small hose to get into the substrate. Not sure how well these work with sand as I have not used sand in a few decades.

My pleco liked to graze on some free floating hornwort. I am not sure if it liked the hornwort better or the algae that grew on it. Either way it worked on the hornwort much of the time. Helped the pleco grow and added to the poo load.

 

[Matt68046]

Sand needs to be stirred, or it can build up pockets of bad bacteria. The good thing about gravel is the air space in between rocks allows air flow which mean healthier bacteria growing in the gravel. However, the amount of bacteria in the gravel can get pretty excessive, leading to nitrates 300ppm or more in just a few months if you dont vacum and if you are heavily stocked. So long story short, my opinion is that gravel is healthier but requires more work, while sand allows the bacteria to sit on the top so you can siphon it off. But it needs to be stirred weekly.

 

[mike37909]

Thanks for the info. I cleaned my bigger canister and aimed the return down and it seems to have increased flow. Plus now the fish are getting used to the sand and digging and blowing the sand around with their tails. This is helping. I may be ok now just doing my weekly cleaning and water change.