clean soil off sand substrate

[lornajane89]

Hi all, finally got my rio400 in the lounge and is cycling




As you can see im using sand substrate. with an aquasoil base layer, ill be going wild with plants when im full cycled. Before adding the substrate i couldnt get the last bit of water out so when i added the soil and sand it was a lil sludgy and some of the soil has ended up floating up and eventually sinking on top of the sand lookin a bit messy. It doesnt seem to come up with a syphon vac is there any other way i can try and get it up? Without disturbing the sand too much. Ive just got my filters on yesterday after 8 hours (2 evenings) of constant water changes to clear the cloudy water (didnt wash the sand well enough) so dont want to have to turn them off or do another pwc now the tanks dosed up with ammonia.

Thanks

Dean

 

[blert]

You could pick it out by hand. Honestly, it will all get mixed up eventually anyway, especially since you have not planted yet, so I would just leave it be.

 

[lornajane89]

... Thats what i thought. Just ive got the filters running now with filter floss over the intakes cause ive got clumps of soil floatin round. The missus suggested takin out the internal filter so i did which has kicked up all the sand and soil again so being too lazy to do 8 hours of pwcs again i just covered up the intakes and let the filters do the work. So i guess ill just leave it..wont look too bad once i get the plants in

 

[Rivercats]

Once you get your plants in and sure your not going to be rearranging in the near future just top up the sand with a nice new thin layer. I've done that many times in dirted tanks. Just add your sand into a cup/container and gently sprinkle it around. After your done just run your hand gently through the plants brushing off any sand that is sitting on them.

 

[lornajane89]

Thanks for the tip. Ill do that