Cleaning sand

[Capslock118]

This is my weakest area, I always make a mess and I seem to always stress out the fish.

First the question that led me to start this thread.

What suggestions does anyone have to scoop up detritus from the sand? I've tried using tubes to suck everything up but I cannot control it's speed and I feel like I lose a lot of sand this way.

I am toying with the idea of a one-way pump valve connected to the tubes I use to pick up the detritus. This way I suck everything up at the speed I chose with my fist....well, now I wonder, I was thinking the detritus would be suspended in the water but maybe if the water is not constantly moving it would all just fall back onto the sand?

What are the best methods to sucking up the detritus while not sucking out the sand?

[johnd651]

do search around. there was a thread on this recently, and one of the better methods was to suck it up, kink the hose, let the sand fall, and unkink the house to suck up the rest

no CUC for the sand? if not, look into one of those

[Sugar Magnolia]

I've never cleaned my sand. I have ceriths and nassarius snails along with a starfish and micro stars that do the cleaning for me.

[mr_bigl]

I have nassarius snails and starfish as well. With enough of them they keep the sand prety clean IMO.

[Capslock118]

what's a CUC?

Yes, I generally had snails, an urchin, and and crabs to keep the bed clean and I never had a problem.

The problem now is trying to recoup from an incident.

The urchin died about 2 months ago and you know these serpent stars, well at least mine, goes for anything like a hawk the second it's dead. So the start going after the dead urchin ended up killing the star.

So i just recently restocked my tank with a handful of snails and very tiny blue-leg crabs and a sand-sifting star. For the last couple of days they have been doing a good job.

But the sand is so filthy, especially in my little cave that I formed from suspending my live rock - probably because that's where water moves the least.

[johnd651]

CUC = clean up crew

there is a bunch of snails and crabs and such that will burrow into the sand and help turn it over...seems like you are on the right track

[Metal Man 1221]

well if you have re stocked your CUC i would only give it more time, especially if the bed is deep, sand sifting stars i hear do a good job at cleaning the sand bed, as well as nassarius snails like said above, maybe a tang if you have room, my yellow tang does a great job at grazing on my rocks and sand bed

[undrtkr_00]

Yeah, critters will do a better job of keeping the sand clean than you will be ably to by hand.

If you have a small tank, a pistol shrimp will keep a decent sized patch of sand turned over and pretty clean. :clown:

[Jake007]

I have 3 conchs and nasarous and my sand is clean....

[jb61264]

Well...there's always the gold head sleeper goby...it will absolutely keep your sand clean, however I must say that you should have a courser sand if you are going to have one of these...I had sugar sand aragonite and although it kept things perfectly clean in my 75...it suspended some of the fines in my tank, it would still be in my tank if I had a courser grade above sugar sand.

[MSUvsUM]

+1 on the conch idea mentioned above. they do a good job of moving around and cleaning the surface of the sand bed.

[tate1]

I trawl the sand with a a hard plastic tube used for cleaning sand. I have a clear hose attached to the end of the tube. The hose is about 3 foot long. My waste goes into a 5 gallon bucket and I control the flow using my thumb at the end of the hose over the buckt. Works great and is easy.