Poo And Sand

[carpking]

Hi All

I have a small set up (180l) 1000 x 400 x 400 which has a sand substrate.

My question is after i hoover it , it looks great but within 30 mins my fish have left me loads of little presents all over my lovely clean sand i guess i have an impossible question but how can i stop this happening, how can i move this waste around the aquarium so it gets drawn into my filter intake bearing mind this sits about 2inch above the sand.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Mikey1]

one of the many reasons why i will never use sand....

 

[DrSlackBladder]

Mine is the same, although I use a sand with different shades of particles so the poo is a little camouflaged, not much you can do about it, but you could try lowering your filter intake, or scape a slope with deeper sand one end so more waste collects at the shallower end for easy removal, or feed your fish less!

 

[fluttermoth]

The poo is still there, whether you can see it or not...

You can move your filter outake slightly, or even add a powerhead if your tank's big enough.

 

[zain611]

You can probably make a ridge surface on the bottom so the poo rolls to that end of the tank making it easy to take out from the vac but with my sand from pets@home its difficult to see the poo at the bottom as the sand has bits of black, grain, and those sort of grain colours

 

[Gilli]

Use black sand- its more expensive but doesn't look so gross!

 

[carpking]

Yeah i like the look of black sand but then you cant see the poo to clean which makes it even harder.

Cant they invent a filter like the one on nemo that cleans the whole aquarium by itself. LOL.

Think it was called the aqua scum 3000

 

[Mikey1]

this is where an UGF is very good and useful....unfortunately u cant use one with sand

if you are getting that much of a buildup i would question how much and how often are you feeding your fish? i rarely see ANY poo on the bottom of my tanks, even the tanks that have no substrate at all

 

[carpking]

only feed a pinch a day so not over feeding them if you dont see any poo where does it go?

 

[This Old Spouse]

I have a powerhead in my tank directed so the waste gets pushed toward the filter intake. I also discovered that switching from white sand to play sand kind of camouflages the poo.

 

[zain611]

Would say the same for the pets@home sand

 

[This Old Spouse]

Would say the same for the pets@home sand

I use play sand ... $3 for 20 lbs.!

 

[zain611]

Cant remember the price for mine but its silicon