Water Change / Maintenance Question

[Richieexd]

Hey there, It's has been a week since I added stock to my aquarium (it's been cycled) and a water change is due. I was reading through the forum about gravel vacs used during water changes. What do I do if I have a mixture of gravel and live sand? How do I clean the sand and the gravel if they are together. Thanks. -Richie

 

[5teady_2012]

Is your tank running on undergravel filetr?

Its not a good idea really to mix sand with gravel, you will have to just use the vac as normal and probably will end up losing sand each time you do it.

If you are using undergravel, the sand will stop it working properly

 

[Richieexd]

No, I'm running an external canister filter with a UV sterilizer. Perhaps it's not gravel. The LFS recommended a mixture of Live sand and some sort of small pebbles or rocks to mix it in with? Maybe it's gravel i'm not sure, I will go back and ask today.

 

[5teady_2012]

What i do with my sand ones, is just put my hand in tank and fan the sand to disturb the dirt, that usually does the trick for me.

 

[Richieexd]

What i do with my sand ones, is just put my hand in tank and fan the sand to disturb the dirt, that usually does the trick for me.

Would that upset the fish? I noticed when I put my new plants in I had to move the sand and coral rocks around ( I asked today and they told me it was broken coral rocks), the water got a bit cloudy, how will the fish fare with that?