I have CaribSea's Torpedo Beach sand in my tank, which averages at 1.2mm grains. This stuff is incredibly easy to stir up, but sinks really well (you can even stick the g-vac tube into it without worry of sucking it up).
Well, I previously had a tank with CaribSea's Tahitian Moon black sand, which maxxed out at .3mm, and I sifted it every other water change. I've tried sifting this Torpedo stuff a few times and it's rather... messy. Because it's larger grain, the top 1/4th-1/2 inch layer tends to accumulate debris. This isn't a huge deal, but when I try to do the sifting routine that I did with my black sand to keep it from compacting, my tank turns light milky white and stays like that for around a week until the filter starts eating through it.
I'm not really sure what my cleaning procedure should be with this stuff. Should I bother sifting it at all? Should I stick the vacuum in as far as I safely can? It doesn't seem to ever try and compact at all.
The tank with the sand is a 40 gal. breeder + XP3 with 1 juv. kissing gourami and 1 juv senegal bichir, so the fish are not terribly messy. ~50% water changes once a week.
Any advice?
Well, I previously had a tank with CaribSea's Tahitian Moon black sand, which maxxed out at .3mm, and I sifted it every other water change. I've tried sifting this Torpedo stuff a few times and it's rather... messy. Because it's larger grain, the top 1/4th-1/2 inch layer tends to accumulate debris. This isn't a huge deal, but when I try to do the sifting routine that I did with my black sand to keep it from compacting, my tank turns light milky white and stays like that for around a week until the filter starts eating through it.
I'm not really sure what my cleaning procedure should be with this stuff. Should I bother sifting it at all? Should I stick the vacuum in as far as I safely can? It doesn't seem to ever try and compact at all.
The tank with the sand is a 40 gal. breeder + XP3 with 1 juv. kissing gourami and 1 juv senegal bichir, so the fish are not terribly messy. ~50% water changes once a week.
Any advice?
