Cleaning Ugly Sand

[Oscar]

I have ugly sand. It is not as pretty as the nice white sand showing in most tank shots. It is white/black/purple/green and it has been that way for 12 months.

I am ashamed to take it out in public!
I want to know how to bring this stuff around.

I currently have the following issues:

1. New skimmer on order that should arrive in 2 weeks. I have never had a skimmer that really worked as well as it should.

2. Poor flow. Awaiting replacement parts for my Vortech (water and electrical stuff do not mix).

3. I also have one sand sifting star and a bunch of nasarius snails. The star was added 6 months ago but with no appreciable difference to the sand.


So...can I stir my sand? Will that release methane or something worse? Is stirring the appropriate treatment?

[untamed]

4. Always clean your sand before publishing tank photos.

[manaf]

i have white bleach sugar sand and currently dont have anything to stir it up so every now and then i would skim the very top layer of the sand and let get sucked up by the filter havent had a problem, i doupt any serious amount of methane build up is right at the surface

[no_bs]

Maybe when you get all your new stuff this problem will disappear. Try a cucumber in the mean time. (not the ones from the garden)

[Leah]

Oscar,

I would not recommend stirring it, I would use a siphon and slowly start siphoning small areas at a time.
How old is your sand bed?
I have always used a siphon to clean my sand bed. You can control the flow once you have the sand trapped inside you just bend the hose and it spits the sand back out.

[Oscar]

Originally Posted by Leah

Oscar,

I would not recommend stirring it, I would use a siphon and slowly start siphoning small areas at a time.
How old is your sand bed?

I have not used a siphon since I had a fresh water tank in high school. At that time I used a siphon for cleaning mostly the surface although it certainly did clean to a certain depth.

The sandbed is 18 months old. I will have to post a couple of photos tonight.

[Oscar]

ok here are a couple of photos of the issue. My questions:

1. What is the cause? Over feeding, poor circulation?
2. How do I clean this up? I am sure it is providing some function but it sure is ugly.

[Oscar]

Originally Posted by Leah

Oscar,

I have always used a siphon to clean my sand bed. You can control the flow once you have the sand trapped inside you just bend the hose and it spits the sand back out.

Leah: You think a siphon would solve my sand problem? Are you using a simple Hagen type syphon?

yup, Leah is right. You are suficating your sand bed you will need to siphon your sand do it slowly to not have to much stuff flotting around your tank. You may want to do it a second time, but, before you do it the second time you will need to move the sand away from the walls of the tank. Using an algea scraper and scrape that bad black brown algea off the walls while you have a hose to siphon the bad stuff out of your tank. Then do a complete siphon of your sand again, do your water change and things should settle down from there.

Bill

[Oscar]

Thanks Bill and Leah. I will start that this weekend.

After I get the current situation cleaned up then is siphoning a regular maintenance program?