Cleaning Ugly Sand

[Oscar]

I have ugly sand. It is not as pretty as the nice white sand showing in most tank shots. It is white/black/purple/green and it has been that way for 12 months.

I am ashamed to take it out in public!
I want to know how to bring this stuff around.

I currently have the following issues:

1. New skimmer on order that should arrive in 2 weeks. I have never had a skimmer that really worked as well as it should.

2. Poor flow. Awaiting replacement parts for my Vortech (water and electrical stuff do not mix).

3. I also have one sand sifting star and a bunch of nasarius snails. The star was added 6 months ago but with no appreciable difference to the sand.


So...can I stir my sand? Will that release methane or something worse? Is stirring the appropriate treatment?

[untamed]

4. Always clean your sand before publishing tank photos.

[manaf]

i have white bleach sugar sand and currently dont have anything to stir it up so every now and then i would skim the very top layer of the sand and let get sucked up by the filter havent had a problem, i doupt any serious amount of methane build up is right at the surface :mrgreen:

[no_bs]

Maybe when you get all your new stuff this problem will disappear. Try a cucumber in the mean time. (not the ones from the garden)

[Leah]

Oscar,

I would not recommend stirring it, I would use a siphon and slowly start siphoning small areas at a time.
How old is your sand bed?
I have always used a siphon to clean my sand bed. You can control the flow once you have the sand trapped inside you just bend the hose and it spits the sand back out.

[Oscar]

Oscar,

I would not recommend stirring it, I would use a siphon and slowly start siphoning small areas at a time.
How old is your sand bed?


I have not used a siphon since I had a fresh water tank in high school. At that time I used a siphon for cleaning mostly the surface although it certainly did clean to a certain depth.

The sandbed is 18 months old. I will have to post a couple of photos tonight.

[Oscar]

ok here are a couple of photos of the issue. My questions:

1. What is the cause? Over feeding, poor circulation?
2. How do I clean this up? I am sure it is providing some function but it sure is ugly.

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh20/prairie56/DSC_4202s.jpg


http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh20/prairie56/DSC_4206s.jpg

[Oscar]

Oscar,

I have always used a siphon to clean my sand bed. You can control the flow once you have the sand trapped inside you just bend the hose and it spits the sand back out.

Leah: You think a siphon would solve my sand problem? Are you using a simple Hagen type syphon?

[bvlester]

yup, Leah is right. You are suficating your sand bed you will need to siphon your sand do it slowly to not have to much stuff flotting around your tank. You may want to do it a second time, but, before you do it the second time you will need to move the sand away from the walls of the tank. Using an algea scraper and scrape that bad black brown algea off the walls while you have a hose to siphon the bad stuff out of your tank. Then do a complete siphon of your sand again, do your water change and things should settle down from there.

Bill

[Oscar]

Thanks Bill and Leah. I will start that this weekend.

After I get the current situation cleaned up then is siphoning a regular maintenance program?

[Leah]

How deep is your sandbed? Yes I just use the hagen siphon's I think I got them from J&L.
Start slow, do not go overboard and time it with a water change :biggrin:

[Oscar]

How deep is your sandbed?

Sandbed is about 2" deep. Yes, I will take it slow and make it part of my water change process from here on.

[Oscar]

I invested in a gravel siphon this week. Changed my carbon and GFO yesterday morning before siphoning.

My normal water change is 4G (13% of my water). The siphon drains water very quickly compared to how much sand is cleaned but this sure works. I filled one 4G tub yesterday and another 4G tub this morning but really did not clean much sand.

I checked for phosphates with my Elos test kit but still showing zero.

I noticed that last night my candy cane did not extend its polyps for the first time in months.

I would like to continue siphoning through the week but should I wait until the candy cane shows its polyps again as an indicator that the water has returned to normal?

[bvlester]

I would wate a few adys (2-3) in between the siphonings to let things get back to normal.
Are you just siphoning one small part of your tank at a time, that is what I would do. If the siphon picks out alot of sand you can lift the siphon up off the sand and slow the flow a bit. This lets the heavy sand fall beck to the sand bed and will still clean it as the small particals will stay in the siphon. If you want to do a larger area of your sand you can, just plan on doing a larger water change your corals should respond quicker also.

Bill

[Oscar]

I would wate a few adys (2-3) in between the siphonings to let things get back to normal.

Bill

Bill: As many have said, good things happen slowly. So I will take your advice and siphon maybe twice a week. At this rate it will take me until Christmas to get through the first round of sand cleaning. Then it will become part of my usual water change regimen.

[bvlester]

I am saying every 2-3 days to let your corals recover a bit in before going through it again or you can do the whole thing in 1 go this may stress them to much. as your tank is so small. you could upgrade your tank as a xmas gift to yourself and make the sand cleaning a part of the up grade. use your tank water to wash out the sand and then use a bit of new salt mix to rinse the sand before adding to the new tank. other things you can do is put everything a large tough toot and do a sand cleaning and rinse with new salt water mix. one other thing I didn't remember to let you know when you clean a new area you should give the area that you have already cleaned a once over.

After carfull thought I have changed my opinion as to what I would do. My self I would do the large tough toot idea or upgrade to a larger tank. It would take less time and way less work. As it seems that you are cleaning only a very small area. This way all you would have to do is siphon as regular maintenance.

I am giving you more options as we go.
Bill

[Oscar]

Actually my Christmas gift to myself is a new skimmer. In the new year I am planning on shifting into SPS for the first time. So cleaning the sand bed is the first of a process to bring my tank up to the task of supporting SPS.

No room around here for a bigger tank unless some of the furniture goes.

[bvlester]

well then, do the large tough toot because you want to have the sand clean and the bacteria in it for a while before you start adding sps after you clean your sand you can use cycle to help promote the bacteria to grow and spred out. cycle is supose to have beneficial bacteria in it. just make sure you use saltwater to clean and rinse youor sand and all will be fine. This way you can get your sand clean fast and cleaner than with just siphoning. You will still have beneficial bacteria in it from your tank and it will be just like new you can also clean the glass where the algea is. It will take less than a day insted of 4 weeks or so.

Bill

Bill