Ok, I'm Now Fed Up With......

[Irf]

SAND!!!!!

I really wanted a sand substrate so that my Mbuna could dig to their heart's content, and I planned my whole tank around that. To be fair, they do actually seem to love it, regularly re-landscaping for me! I often come down in the mornings to find that they have piled the sand up in mounds and dug holes everywhere.

There are lots of rocks in the tank as well, some large and some medium sized (fist). The rocks are piled quite high. Recent additions are a couple of pieces of bogwood (not mopani) for the BN plec now sharing the tank (and eating algae like a champ!).

My problem? Fish poo! The mbuna were bad enough but now the plec is in there as well it's out of control. And because of the rocks and my careful arrangements of caves, tunnels, etc. I don't like to take it all out (would take me hours). So what I do is to squirt water (from a clean turkey baster pipette) into all the rock crevices to force the water through and hopefully the poo as well. Then when I'm vacuuming up I get the poo that was originally in the caves and tunnels (with sand!).

It's getting to be a real problem now, because I seem to need to vacuum twice a week to keep things clean looking. I will try and upload a pic of what I mean tonight.

How do others with sand substrate manage? Am I being too fussy? Is there some other solution (less rocks?).

Any help appreciated.

Irf.

 

[Teelie]

More powerful filtration? I have sand in all my tanks and two of them have plecs, one has 5 of them and poo is not a problem. In fact I get a bigger problem from clumps of hair algae getting blown around the bottom of my 55g than the plec poo. I have some good filtration running to counter it though.

 

[Demm]

my 55 has sand in it and i dare say its VERY crowded. prolly about 25 fish in there (each averaging about 2-3 inches). also about 100+lbs of rocks. i ahve 2 plecos and one catfish. i run an emperor 400 and a topfin 60, so my tank gets turned over about 14-15 times an hour. i dont have the slightest problem with poo at all. in fact i'm looking at my tank right now and i dont even see one piece at all. havent vacuumed in about 1 or 2 weeks, i just do simple water changes.

so maybe it might be a filtration thing like teelie said.

 

[angelmouse]

thats intresting, i have same prob, would it be better moving the filter intake pipes nearing to the sand? i was abit worried about it sucking the sand up.
Angel

 

[Demm]

as long as your a couple inches above the sand you'll be fine. one of my filters it about 3 inches above the sand. the other is about 8 inches. the idea i was trying to do was one filter was for the top area of the water, other was for the botton

 

[Irf]

I was actually wondering about filtration, but let me tell you what I've got in there at the moment.

There's a piddly little filter (which is just there to keep it cycled) that I use in a hospital/breeding tank as required. There is also an Eheim Ecco 2231 canister filter. Finally there is a Eheim Professional 2224 filter.

The intake for the Ecco is about two inches above the sand, in the corner. The intake for the Pro is about 5 inches above the sand, in the corner at the other end of the tank.

The outlet from the Ecco is a spraybar, flowing water from left to right across the top of the tank. The outlet from the Pro is also a spraybar, but it jets downwards at the right end of the tank, creating a good aeration effect.

The tank is 3ft long (40 gallons).

Do I need to rearrange the intakes/outlets? I was kind of planning on doing that anyway, but suggestions would be good.

My issue is that the poo all sinks to the bottom, and therefore can't possibly make it up into the inlets. Can someone explain? Is my fish poo different?

Many thanks for comments so far....

Irf.

 

[Irf]

Thought I'd add a pic so you can see one end of the layout.....

See the poo below where the filter intake is? This is the intake for the Pro filter. I can drop it lower if people think that would help. Also as mentioned above, I can rearrange so that both intakes are at the same end is necessary.

Any further comments? Is my pipework set up wrong?

Thanks,

Irf.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

get a powerhead and position it near the bottom of your tank (you can hide it in amongst your rock pile if you like) this will stop too much poop settling on the floor and therefore more will get sucked up by the filter.

 

[Ferris]

The filter intake at that end is too high - it really needs to be a couple of inches above the substrate - at the moment it's just sucking in water only from the mid-level of the tank.

 

[Irf]

OK, I'll drop the intake down so that it's about an inch above the sand. If that doesn't work I'll get a powerhead (is that basically some kind of pump?) and do what Miss Wiggle says.

It's worth saying that at the other end of the tank (same side) the intake for the Ecco is an inch off the substrate, and poo still settles in that area as well.

Thanks for comments.... I'll let you know. The filter intake fix will be done tonight.

Irf.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah just a pump, you can get small ones from about £10, obviously though you get what you pay for!

 

[Irf]

OK, I'll look on ebay first to see if I can get a decent 2nd hand one. Usual brands of aquarium pump-type stuff OK, or should I be looking for something in particular? Any that I should steer clear of?

If nothing is available in the next few days I'll get a new one online somewhere.

Irf.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

can't think of any to look out for particularly, i'm a bit rubbish with hardware sorry!