Sand maintenence

[TigerBarbs]

What can I do to keep my sand bright and white and clean. I'm getting. A layer of brown on top about 1/2 inch or 3/4 thick then it's white underneath. How do I keep it clean?

 

[Terrance]

If you don't have a fish that digs into the sand, then its better to keep your sand bed 1inch or less thick (makes cleaning really easy). When I start siphoning, I try to get as much of the waste from the top layer as possible. Then as I'm siphoning, I break/mix up the sand bed to prevent toxins from building up. Sure I lose a pinch of sand, but thats ok for me. My fish likes to dig into the sand, so I am required to keep all toxins out of the sand.

If your sand easily gets sucked out of the tank when siphoning, then I would stop siphoning and mix the sand bed before you continue siphoning.

 

[TigerBarbs]

Ok so is agitating the sand and then siphoning after a good idea?

 

[TigerBarbs]

My sand I like sugar it's very very fine

 

[Terrance]

Yeah. So get as much waste off the bottom, then stop siphoning, then agitate, then siphon again when the sand settles. you need to keep your siphon far enough so the sand wont get sucked up and close enough to get the dirty stuff off the bottom.

Check out youtube videos. Some of them are really good.

 

[Bubble_B0y]

for me personally, any sand that I siphon out of the tank, I put back into the tank.
Just use tank water to flush it back in.