best way to clean

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Megalofyia

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jul 1, 2003
Messages
290
Location
Nebraska
What is the best and most efficient way to clean the gravel in a tank? And if I were to switch to sand cause I think it looks cooler how would I clean it?
 
For gravel, (and I'm assuming you're using a siphon here) moving the hose deep into the substrate so it gets the crap *grin* up and out works well for me. Then again, I don't have plants in that tank so I can be pretty thorough.

I also have sand in my planted tank. I use a smaller diameter siphon and just hover the end right above the sand. The detritus sits on the surface, so it comes right up. Also, because sand has less airspace between grains, very little of the deritus sinks in so its not necessary to dig in anyway. A little bit of sand will come along, but not enough to make any diff.

All my tanks run bio-wheels, so I vac the entire bottom (or what I can get to in the planted tank); no worries about ammonia/nitrite spikes.

Btw, were you away for a while Meg? Hadn't seen you in a while.
 
can you mix sand and gravel or is that just a really bad idea? like slowly transition to sand?
 
No point. Too much work required, especially to separate one from the other. Better to just switch (maybe do 1/2 of the tank one week, the other half the next so as not to mess up the bacteria colonies too badly).
 
I might have to move in a few months so I was thinking of switching to sand then. Since I'll have to take everything down. I don't know yet what I'm going to do with the fish while the tank cycles again but I'll cross that bridge then.

Didn't think anyone would have noticed. I was in Mexico for a while. Had a blast!
 
Oooo Mexico. Nice! Which bit did you visit?

And as for moving the tank and recycling, grab some Bio-Spira! When I moved my guys from the 25g to the 55g I used it along with the mature bio-wheel from the 25g tank. No probs :)
 
so did you do change to sand? how was the transition? any comments or suggestions or advice now that you've done it?
 
This is just my experience with sand, but I couldn't imagine changing to a sand substrate by doing anything short of a complete tank breakdown. Maybe someone else has done it before and can tell me I'm wrong, but would trying to change gravel to sand be really messy and harm the fish? I did one change, from gravel to my black gravel, without emptying the tank and it was a dirty, stinky mess. Of course, the tank had been running 10 years before I went and screwed it up :lol:.
I guess I'm just wondering how would one get the sand in the tank, while avoiding major cloudiness? And wouldn't the resulting cloudiness irritate the fishes gills?
 
over in the saltwater forum, I've heard about mixing some sand with tank water, putting it into a pan and freezing it, then set the sheets on the bottom and let them melt and slowly settle.
 
That sounds like an interesting idea except that I imagine it would lower the temp in the tank pretty drastically. Who knows :]
 
OH I like the idea of of mixing the sand with tank water. I was considering making another tank have black sand but I've decided that it is harder than I thought it would be to clean the sand in the 10g tank so I'm just going to use black gravel in the 20g tank.
 
Sati said:
That sounds like an interesting idea except that I imagine it would lower the temp in the tank pretty drastically. Who knows :]

I'm guessing this is something to do to set the tank up before there are fish.. otherwise the ice would float and it would be rather messy waiting for the sand to sink.
 
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