Worst Cleaning Experience Ever

[Joshjr619]

So I'm new to the salty world. I have a 40 gallon tank with live rock and very fine live aragonite sand. My tank was fully cycled and I added a clean up crew. Today I wanted to siphon the sand and so forth. It was horrible, the sand is so fine I was sucking a lot of it through the siphon. I pinched the hose as I have done plenty of times in my freshwater tank but this sucked. Still I was sucking up lots of sand, instead of cleaning I was eating the sand lol. How do I go about this? How can I clean the sand without eating it? Need advice guys please help ahhhhhhhhhhh!

 

[Joshjr619]

Ooo and I might of buried two small snails in the process hopefully they're just hiding. Will they be ok and dig there way out?

 

[techen]

Honestly? You don't need to clean your tank. Thats why you buy a clean up crew. Marine sand is too find for cleaning.

 

[Donya]

Don't try to vac the sand. If you're having debris accumulation problems, the cause of the buildup needs to be addressed (overfeeding, not enough CUC, etc.). If you're not having actual debris accumulation on the sand and just trying to stir it, you shouldn't be doing that. Just leave it and make sure there are animals to gently churn it over time. Sand beds in marine systems don't need the same kind of shaking up that a gravel bed in a fw tank does.
 
If the snails are a digging species like Nassarius or Cerith snails then they will be fine. If they are grazers like Turbo species, you will need to uncover them, since they can get stuck if they are buried with no hard surface to latch onto.