New to Hobby, Inherited tank with new house, boy do I need help.

[Fellow]

Question regarding pulling out a handful a week until its gone. Do i replace a handfula week with sand? or wait until it is all gone then fill with sand? Do I add sand all at one or a handful a week?

The picture is blue because I have the actincs running for an hour more than the other lamps. The lights are brand new. T5HOs
(2) 48" T5 HO 54W 420/460 Lamps
(2) 48" T5 HO 54W 10,000K Lamps
(4) 1W Lunar LED's

Originally Posted by ponokareefer

If when you are vacuuming your substrate, and it is so dirty that you can't see the bottom of the bucket, I'd say that is a major problem. As another reefer pointed out, I would start pulling out a handful a week until it is gone.
Also, are your lights only actinic, or 20K? The picture just seems very blue. If you are only running actinic, you will want to get a few different bulbs. With regards to bulbs, how old are they? Old bulbs can cause algae problems in an aquarium. I will let people who have T5's chime in on how often you should change them out, as I have metal halides. If you don't know the age of some of them, I would switch them out.

you can run your actincs longer you do need to mimic the suns effect. I would take the sand out and wate till it is all out and then replace it, but that is me. IF you give the old sand a extreemly good washing in boiling water it will kill any algae, you have to keep rinsing it till the water runs clear I'd do a 1/3 of a bucket at a time let it all dry out realy good you can even use a baking sheet and put it in the oven. just leave the house for an hour. It may get smelly but the sand will then be good to reuse, after the oven treatment rinse again and let dry. This method kills everything in the sand you will not have algae growing from your sand. Once you put sand back in your tank get a conch I have a slider he does a great job. I have seen many conches at other peoples places most I have seen just stay on the top they will stur the top layer. The silver slider will bury himself and move along and stur the whole 3inches of sand that is in there, wow he makes a difference. hermitcrabs and 1 tuxeedo urchin clean the rocks snails clean glass and the rest of the tank.

Bill