Sand Cleaning Time...

[mcdanielnc89]

What do you guys recommend to clean sand with? and exacly how would you clean it?

 

[Danno]

Take a dowel of some kind and draw lines in the sand. After that use a gravel vac and swirl it in circles ABOVE the sand to catch all the detritus that comes off of it. This way that sand is airated and cleaned.

Is this your tropic isle Tahitian moon sand? How do you like it?
If that is the sand, post a pic!

 

[mcdanielnc89]

What the heck is a dowel?(pics are commin in a sec...)

 

[Bozza]

Thanks for starting this topic. I sorta already knew how to but just wanted to learn abit more about how to clean my sand. Just newly put in sand to my 3ft. Looks good

 

[TubbyLaLa]

Dowel is a thin round wooden rod as far as I know (but it is early in the morning so I may be wrong!) Will be reading this thread with interest as we are about to put sand as a substrate in our new tank

 

[mcdanielnc89]

oops forgot to upload the pics i will do it tomorrow. sry danno.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

its pretty much a round stick

 

[backtotropical]

Hi,

I clean my sand with my net. Just scoop up some sand and gently shake the net. The sand falls through leaving nasties in the net. Seems to work quite well.

 

[doresy]

I just swirl the gravel vac about to disturb the poo then suck it up 1" or so above the sand. I collect the water in my specially kept bucket then when finished, carefully pour the old water (on the garden) leaving any accidently sucked up sand in the bucket. I leave that to dry and just before I do the next water change the dry sand just taps out and is replaced in the tank

 

[Danno]

Yep, a dowel is a (normally) skinny wood rod. You could use anything really. As long as when you plan on gravel vac'ing you also airate it.

 

[Bozza]

I have started to do both methods. Use the net to sift thru the sand and use gravel vacuum. I dont really care about how much sand I suck up. Cause I have a fair amount of sand in the tank to start off with. I know a mate with sand and he just uses a clear hose to suck up the dirty stuff. Its quite affective