Question

[onecrzyboi4u]

Okay i been wondering about this. When i take my algae scrapper and clean the glass sometimes i hit the sand when cleaning that far.. and when i hit the sand all this "funk" brown nasty stuff comes up from the sand. is this normal? i have some nassarious snails in there .. i 'm wondering should i add more or add something else

[acrodave]

When you do a water change try doing a gravel vac.

[sruiz]

try not to stir up all the junk in your tank. And yes thats normal everyone with sand has that. That is why some people decide to do bare bottom tanks with no sand and only live rock.

[GlobaLPimP]

note - not everyone with sand has that (maybe cloudy dust, but not nasty brown funk) I stir up my sand bed at least once a week with a turkey baister. All that gunk that you are seeing from your sand bed is BAD - and will lead to algae outbreaks due to excessive nutrients trapped in your sand bed if your not careful. The main reason people switch to bare bottom is to keep from having all that "crap" poluting their system. I learned this from an extremely respected LFS in my area. They have the best reputation in this area and their tanks are impeccable - no sand dust when they mix any of their tanks' sand with their hands. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm getting close. You just need to stay on top of it.
just my 2 pennies;)

[uscharalph]

I also use a gravel vac when I do water changes. I just vac the areas I can easily get to. My engineer goby stirs up a lot of the rest when he moves sand around.

[onecrzyboi4u]

how do you vac sand lol?

[GlobaLPimP]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11104216#post11104216 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by onecrzyboi4u
how do you vac sand lol?
same way you vac gravel. However, due to the sand granules being so fine, you need to regulate the flow rate of the siphon to keep from sucking up the sand. It's a bit of a hastle with sand but it "can" be done.

[wizzbane15]

a python is a good vac system. you can regulate the flow with a ball valve that it comes with.

[onecrzyboi4u]

Wouldn't i be loosing the good bacteria in the sand?

[GlobaLPimP]

you will get rid of more BAD than GOOD;)

[spike78]

First of all, how deep is the sand bed? If you have a bed that is over 4 inches, you shouldn't vacuum or stir it, let it do it's thing. If you are getting a buildup of detrius on the top of the sand bed, you probably don't have enough flow over the sand.

If your bed is less than an inch, vacuum away. :) A sand sifting animal may also help keep the sand clean in a shallow sand bed.

[onecrzyboi4u]

i have 2-3 inches of sand.. what are some good sand sifting animals besides gobies and cukes

[killagoby]

Some species of stars.

[spike78]

You are in kind of a bad spot as far as depth. Your sand bed really needs to be deeper than 4 inches, or less than an inch. I would consider pulling out an inch or 2 and getting a sifting goby and maybe a sand sifting sea star, or just vacuuming it yourself.

The only thing I don't know about is how compatible those animals are with such a small tank.

[bllfish]

Get a Ranfordi Goby. He will sift your sand and with the snails and bristle worms you should be fine. Make sure you do not overload your tank.

[tinmanny]

when you vacume
most will tell you that you are in the middle of sand depth and that is not a good place
1" or over 4" what I would do is vacume some sand right out and just put it aside let it dry out and then save it for later when you need some
when you vacume the sand just let some go till the next time so you will never remove all the good stuff and you won't lower the inhabitants too low

ps put the outlet end of the hose in a nylon and you will catch all the sand you remove