does sand help keeping your poly tank water clean?is not that I'm lazy, but if its help reducing the frequency of changing the water in tank, then it would save me bunch of water from the tap; I know that sand would somehow trap most of poly's waste in it, then wouldnt it be harder to clean the waste?
sands
- Thread starter GarNiac
- Start date
Sand is really harder to clean. I like to keep my polys with sand sifters...IE, Geo's, fronts, gold fish, ray's, Clown loaches, etc. Pool filter sand works good with the syphon hose and won't such up much sand.
you still need to do weekly waterchanges.Because it ''packs''tightly most aste stays on top of it.vacuuming a sand tank has a little mor ''art'' involved but its not hard-Anne
I wouldn't say "cleaner" but because sand is so compact, all the detritus mainly sits on top. Which makes vacuuming a bit easier. It's still a good idea to run through the sand once in awhile.
ive had sand for a while, but im getting rid of it now, coincidentally i started syphoning it out today. if you choose sand, you need to put so thin of a layer that it really just covers the bottom of the tank, if its even an inch thick, its WAY too thick. what happens is that the sand traps nitrites/nitrates and if a certain patch of sand is left untouched for too long, upon disturbing it, it can actually create sulfuric acid in your water, instantly dropping your pH to 4 or lower and doing massive damage to your fish (obviously). Get rid of your sand if you have it too thick, or simply take enough out so that you are only covering the bottom of the glass.
Believe it or not, sand ends up being MUCH dirtier than gravel and very annoying to clean. Best way to clean it is to syphon the sand into a bucket and actually washing the sand off, then dumping it back into the tank. Even then, it should be done every 3 weeks.
Believe it or not, sand ends up being MUCH dirtier than gravel and very annoying to clean. Best way to clean it is to syphon the sand into a bucket and actually washing the sand off, then dumping it back into the tank. Even then, it should be done every 3 weeks.
yea if u read my post about it i had a hard time with it to. wat i did is took a fish net like u find at walmart an put small fistfulls at a time an run it under a garden hose until all the soft funky sand is washed away an the coarser sand is still in the net. it takes a long time to do but i say it was worth it.
I used to use sand and liked it, but when I kept finding some in my cannisters, I tossed it out.
What I didn't like is that the waste was more visible and it was difficult to use powerheads to keep the surface clear because the powerehead would just dig a ditch in the sand.
Also, when the bichirs stir it up, it sticks to them. I hate that.
I'll only keep polys over gravel or bare bottom now, but I'd definitely keep fw eels and or geos, etc.. on sand.
What I didn't like is that the waste was more visible and it was difficult to use powerheads to keep the surface clear because the powerehead would just dig a ditch in the sand.
Also, when the bichirs stir it up, it sticks to them. I hate that.
I'll only keep polys over gravel or bare bottom now, but I'd definitely keep fw eels and or geos, etc.. on sand.