How Do You Clean Yours?

[Spishkey]

i have sand at the bottom of my tank and find it gets dirty quite quickly as my plec poops like theres no tomorrow!
i tend to use a little flexible tube to 'suck' up as much of the bits as i can but it tends to suck out the sand too. is there an easier way to clean sand? i dont have a vac thingy and cant afford to buy anything 'new' at the moment either so im open to suggestions!!!

also how do you get an algae like substance off the sand?

 

[Colin_T]

use a gravel cleaner. You can make one out of a plastic 1.5 or 2litre cool drink container. Cut the bottom off the container and attach a hose to the top. Then have the bottle in the tank and start syphoning water out the hose. Push the bottle into the sand and it should swirl up and around the bottle. If you kink the hose you will be able to reduce the flow rate and the sand should sink back down.

 

[Spishkey]

oooooh fantastic idea!!

 

[doresy]

Yes, that's a good 'free' sugestion.

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that a smaller diameter tube helps to stop sucking up sand, it doesn't. Better to use large diameter pipe or end tube

 

[Faythee]

I have white sand and a Pleco. I feel your pain ! Drives me crazy. I manage to suck up some sand everytime I siphon clean, but the sand settles to the bottom of the bucket. Pour off the water and scoop up the sand and put it back.

 

[nicnak]

What can i say... i moved my pleco to my other tank that has gravel ... lol

 

[michaelp]

I would stick to using a flexible pipe, most of the gravel vacs i've seen are to bulky to get into crevices where all the c!*p seems to accumulate. I use a 18mm clear flexible tube and although you do tend to suck up some sand it always sinks to the bottom of the bucket, so you can empty most of the bucket, then pour the remainder and the sand back into the tank. Flexible tubing is also useful for picking off snails!.

 

[TylerFerretLord]

Malaysian trumpet snails.

 

[Faythee]

You can also swoosh the poo out of the crevices with a turkey baster

I have considered moving my Pleco to the gravel tank...LOL

 

[nicnak]

Yep,at least with gravel you cant see the poop that much and when you gravel vac you can really give it a good clean without worrying about sucking up all the sand

 

[Miss Wiggle]

there's a bit of a knack to vacc'ing sand, once you've got it it's nice n easy to keep clean. you can see all the poop on top of it so you know when it's clean or dirty and can keep on top of it better.

just hover the vac about 1cm above the surface of the sand, gently swirl it round in circles and the poo will lift off the surface and up into the tube and no sand will lift up.