Sand removal?
 

After running my tank for 7 months, it's become obvious that the sugar sand isn't going to stop clouding the water any time soon. I'm thinking of replacing it with a courser sand.
I'd like to remove it all in one go, so looking for ideas on filtering the water as I vacuum the sand out, so that it can feed back into the DT. Trying not to drain the whole tank :)

ugh Brad i am in the same boat but my tank is only 40 gallons so i have just been mixing 5 gallons of water at a time and trying to siphon as much as i can, then just replacing the water. I tried running it through filter floss and having the water empty back into the sump but the sugar sand still has fine enough particles to get through.

I'm thinking the only way is to get a kiddies sand play shovel and remove it a scoop at a time.


fyi - go with the carib sea floor special grade... its bigger than the sugar sand but still "sifter" safe.

Ya, floss isn't likely to work :) A huge diatom filter maybe, or a sand filter from a pool might do it -lol. No way I can remove it with a shovel, the rock work is too intricate. I might have to remove a bit at a time during water changes...

That is the sand I'll probably use.

Exactly what I did with mine. My daughter didn't seem to mind me using her shovel. Just took a long damn time and I didn't get all of it either.

I use a large fish net to wash my sand but there is some sand loss, maybe something like pantyhose? :noidea:

I have used a cheap large pump with a hose on the intake and a filter sock on the outlet. Suck up the sand/ water with the pump and the filter sock attached to the outlet will catch the sand. It has been my most effective attempt to remove the sand.

what micron rating was the sock? I find the sugar sand has a lot of "dust" that gets through and into everything and anything

I think 100 they were useless for the tank as the would clog in hrs. It defiantly was not ideal but i got the sand from my frag tank.

Problem with the sock idea is that I'd have to empty it every 15 seconds, which means stopping the siphon and managing the sock with 1 hand :) If I could find a really large one?? hmmm

When I've removed sand before as part of a water change it siphons out with zero mess. I'd suggest not doing it all at once. You can suck a ton of sand out if you're doing a 40% change.

Ya, but I use a long hose to the tub, and 50 pounds of sand might clog the drain :P
Ideally, I'd like to remove sand with siphon, return water to the tank, repeat, until all the sand is gone. Ideally... :)

You might just have to suck it up and revert back to 5g at a time with a short hose and bucket next to the tank =) The stuff in the sand is likely going to be extremely fine (and maybe nutrient rich or contain gasses I dunno). I'd want sand plus water/particulates/gas instantly out in one fell swoop.

Well, ya, that's the correct answer, just not an answer I want to entertain just yet -lol

+1, sorry Brad but yeah just suck it up (The sand that is, I don't know why you think I would mean anything else by that.)

Sand into the bucket or a rubbermaid until it's full, then refill with clean water, repeat the next day. Disturbing the sand bed is a dangerous risky endeavour. Get it out as cleanly as you can.

you did see who posted the comment, right?? :)

I guess it's the only real way. I'm not concerned with gases, the sand is fairly shallow and well turned over by the wrasses (the problem to begin with)

Well, originally I had typed "suck it up, princess" but decided against it .. but I kept the disclaimer. Because "suck it up" sometimes means, you know, suck it up, and not, suck it up. You know. So in this case, suck up the sand, suck it up with the bucket, I know it sucks, but you can do it.

Tony, that whole idea kinda, you know, sucks.....

I am going to attempt to change my sand bed as well. My sand bed is fairly shallow and quite fine. I have two questions, the first being what did you replace your sand bed with, how course was the new sand that you ended up using. The second question is did you use a siphon hose or a pump to remove the existing sand bed.

Thank you
Rick

I've changed mine a few times. Went from sugar sand to crushed coral then to select grade. When I changed it out I shut off all my pumps & powerheads and just scooped it out. A vac might have worked better for the sugar sand.

depending on the sand it can jam up a pump really well then you have to shut it off which allows some back into the tank. results in a mess.

simply siphon the sand out with a decent-sized hose. your water will remain exactly as it looked before and it will remove the sand entirely.

when adding new sand back in i swish small amounts in a bowl to remove floaties then strain it a net-full at a time under running water to remove fines. it goes back into the tank almost crystal clear.

Maybe syphon sand into large bucket and overflow mosly just water (maybe a sheet or filter of some sort here to catch the fine bits of sand still turned up in the water) into a larger pail underneath with a pump returning the water to dt? Idk if that makes sense? I was picturing a 5 gallon pail on a box over a small kiddy pool with a retun pump and a sheet/filter between the two? Now that i think about it tho... Syphon into a smaller tank with an overflow into a sump and return the water to display. Sand should stay in smaller tank with overflow, no?

I have a 230 gallon display tank and a 100 gallons sump. What I was going to do was just siphon the water and sand into 5 gallon pails. Then I was going to replace the water with new water for my scheduled water change. So hopefully when removing the sand and water I do not remove more than 40 gallons of water. The siphon hose I was going to use is a three-quarter inch soft plastic hose.
I was just going to rinse the new sand in my RO/DI water. I like the idea of using a large diameter PVC pipe to put the new sent back into the tank.

Hey Brad, i have the answer for you!! Ok, when i used to clean and siphon out the fish only system at progressive reef, i would get the big brute, siphon into the brute, then get the freshwater aquarium micron filter (progressive growth has a couple still) and the pump and pump water out of the brute through the filter and back to the tanks...voila crystal clear water and one hell of a yucky dirty filter media spongey thingy (looks like an acordian):question:.
I am off tomorrow and was heading by there anyway, i will bug the guys to help me dig it out of the shed. ttyl

Thanks Ronnie, but I asked this 08-03-2011. I got it all sorted out now :)

Damn how did i miss this.
Told you so:mrgreen:

Not sure what you think you missed :) I didn't remove sand, I changed it for larger grain.

Duuuuhh....sorry Brad. :redface: