Cleaning Sand???/Introduce black sand?

[Balrog]

I'm so sorry to post this, as I reviewed countless posts in an effort to answer this question ... and did several Internet searches. I have a 135 Gal Salt/Aggressive tank with no live rock. Although my other fish [obviously] produce waste, my puffer lets out some rather large, brownish-red "dumps." I have tried to clean the sand, to the best of my ability, with fish nets ... but it is a laborious process and fairly ineffective. vacuum's won't work, as the particles are too fine and I have not come across any other solution (I bought a Hawaiian Goat, but it only lasted a week or so before it was killed).

I'm sure there is a trick that I have not come across and I would appreciate some insight, should someone have a moment. Also, I was considering putting in black, igneous sand into the tank to bring out the color of the fish/coral. Please let me know, if there are any words of caution.

 

[BillyZ]

if it's true igneous rock you shouldn't have any problems with the sand itself. I belive there are a few here who use it in their tanks, Take their word, not mine

In reagrds to cleaning up after your puffer... you said the waste is too fine to pick up with a vacume but you're able to remove it with a net... so i'm not sure if i'm picturing it correctly... but are these basicaly small piles of waste that, when disturbed, crumble into fine particles and float away?

If so you could go for a two handed approach... I have a long handled algae scraper that I often used for many things other than scraping algae put that in your left hand, and in your right hand have the vacume... stir up the gunk with the scraper while you have the vacume positioned to catch it... I do this on occasion when trying to clean spots the vacume wont really get to easily...

let me know how it works for you.

 

[Balrog]

Thanks for the head's up... that worked pretty well. It's not that the particle size between the waste and the sand was that much different; but rather that I would pull both sand and waste concurrently when vacuuming. The only problem that I continue to have is that my trigger moves a lot of sand around and mixes the droppings in with the sand, making it impossible to clean the sand thoroughly... but I suppose that it will all eventually break down?

 

[BillyZ]

yes it will. If you are maintaining an active DSB with critters and bacteria, they will process the gunk and all should be well.