Sand as substrate...how do you clean it?

[ahelmes71]

I have seen some folks doing freshwater plant set-ups with what appears to be sand or very fine gravel as the substrate.

If you get an algae invasion and it starts covering the sand, how the heck do you clean that? Just scoop off the top layer and toss it out?

I am envisioning big ugly blooms of brown or green algae growing on the floor of the tank and potentially causing an eyesore in that kind of set-up.

I get algae sometimes on my larger-grade gravel, but in that instance I can go through and manually remove each affected stone. Not fun, but it can be done that way.

Andy

 

[Galligak]

I haven had an algae bloom happen (crosses fingers hoping that it never occurs), but I just scan the gravel cleaner about 1cm off the surface and it sucks everything up! Good and clean

 

[Coursair]

Brown Algae is pretty common in new tanks, but it's only a phase and clears up with PWCs and cycling. Never had a major problem with it.

 

[LyndaB]

If you get green algae on the sand, cut back on the amount of hours you keep your lights on. I had it really bad in my 75 and by changing the timing of the lights, I was able to get rid of it in a matter of days.