I'm interested in setting up a large amazon themed tank and have seen some awesome pictures of sandy substrate that looks really good with driftwood. I've never used anything but gravel. I'm wondering how you clean a tank with sand because it seems to me that it would all get siphoned out when doing water changes. Obviously it works some how because a lot of saltwater tanks are sand.... How would you clean a tank like I want? Is it more trouble than its worth?? Thanks.
Sand substrate
- Thread starter jkennedy
- Start date
You may want to use a type of sand that is not to fine. Find something that is coarse enough that when you siphon it won't be able to siphon out the sand. A lot of ppl here use Pool filter sand that works great.
And if you rather and want to use really fine sand... all you would have to do when siphoning is to keep the tip of the siphon 1 inch or 1 1/2 above of the sand, and slowly move it around in your tank, and that would be enough to suck out whatever waste and debris thats laying on top of the sand. Most of the time when using sand... the waste normally doesn't go into or under the sand, it usually stays on top.
And if you rather and want to use really fine sand... all you would have to do when siphoning is to keep the tip of the siphon 1 inch or 1 1/2 above of the sand, and slowly move it around in your tank, and that would be enough to suck out whatever waste and debris thats laying on top of the sand. Most of the time when using sand... the waste normally doesn't go into or under the sand, it usually stays on top.
puffcrusader696;2852294; said:
Totally agree, I have only 1 20 long now with sand and it gets less than 4 hours a light just so I don't get any algae.
packer43064;2852300; said:
i had a 20 long with that reef sand, crushed coral so its a really fine powder and the algae would get on it, grow really thick and black and you couldnt get it off without taking all the sand with it cuz it all stuck... im never ever ever going back to fine sand... coarse is the way to go
puffcrusader696;2852312; said:
I love my bare bottom tanks.
of course they have some decent sized rocks in them, but mostly bare bottom. But with a SW tank, i'm sure a BB tank would just look corny as can be, lol. Get the bigger sand OP, it will help immensely.packer43064;2852377; said:I love my bare bottom tanks.
ive seen a few salt BB tanks... its pretty hard to pull it off but i've seen some nice ones
When I do gravel vacs on my sand tank, if I'm stirring the sand I just put my finger over the outlet of the vac tube and then I can control the flow with that.