Cycle finished!!! Sand question though

[cplawrence]

Thanks to everyone who helped with the cycle!

As for the sand question, the substrate I used for this tank was pool filter sand. When I first set it up, I wrapped the filter intake in a piece of nylon to keep from drawing up sand while everything settled. Then, I never bothered to take it off seeing as there was no detritus that I wanted the filter sucking up right now anyway. However, something I noticed was that when I messed around with the tank and kicked up some of the sand, the nylon would have a fair amount of sand on it--enough to slow down the flow considerably. Do I just have the intake too close to the substrate? Should I turn the filter off when I do anything that would kick up the sand? Or do you imagine that it would be a small enough amount to not really do any harm?

 

[firestar]

The problem with getting sand in your filter is that it can get into the motor (depending on the way your filter is built) and can ruin it. Pull up your intake, for starters, that can help.

 

[jersysman]

Definitely raise your intake, whenever you do any maintenance of your tank (pwc's and the such), I turned off my filter to avoid things like that. Sand in an impeller is not a very good situation. Best to avoid it.

 

[cplawrence]

How high should the intake be? Seeing as I have a Fluval, I can't adjust it all that trivially--I have to cut the intake tube.

 

[FawnN]

I personally tend to turn everything off when I fiddle around with my tanks, especially now with the sand for that exact reason.

You should definately turn everything off when doing water changes so you don't burn out your motor.