Sand maintenance

fishiemama18 · Sep 27, 2018

I’d like to have sand as my substrate for the cory cats I will get.

What kind of siphon do I need? Is sand anymore difficult to care for than gravel? Any tips I should know?

Thanks

Colin_T · Sep 27, 2018

Most sand will compact down more than gravel and due to the smaller grains in sand, you have less food falling into gaps. This means the sand will normally stay cleaner than gravel but you should still gravel clean the sand regularly.

A normal basic gravel cleaner like the one in the following link will work fine for sand, but if the sand gets sucked out, kink the hose a bit to slow the speed of the water being syphoned out.
https://www.about-goldfish.com/aquarium-cleaning.html

You only need a thin layer of sand unless you have live plants. If you want plants you can increase the thickness of the sand where you have plants and leave the sand thinner where there are no plants. you can use rocks or driftwood to create walls to hold the sane up.

fishiemama18 · Sep 27, 2018

Colin_T said:
Most sand will compact down more than gravel and due to the smaller grains in sand, you have less food falling into gaps. This means the sand will normally stay cleaner than gravel but you should still gravel clean the sand regularly.

A normal basic gravel cleaner like the one in the following link will work fine for sand, but if the sand gets sucked out, kink the hose a bit to slow the speed of the water being syphoned out.
https://www.about-goldfish.com/aquarium-cleaning.html

You only need a thin layer of sand unless you have live plants. If you want plants you can increase the thickness of the sand where you have plants and leave the sand thinner where there are no plants. you can use rocks or driftwood to create walls to hold the sane up.

Would this work? I don’t quite understand how the sand won’t get sucked out with the water, haha sorry I’m a noob.

Colin_T · Sep 27, 2018

Try to find a basic model gravel cleaner like the one in the link in my original post. You don't need the other bits on it.

The gravel cleaners work by draining water out of the tank. As the water syphons out, you push the wider pipe into the substrate and lift it up. The gravel or sand gets sucked up a bit and circulates inside the wide tube and then drops back down. The gunk in the substrate gets drawn up and out with some of the water.

If the sand gets sucked up you kink the hose a bit and that will slow the water down and allow the sand to sink.

After the sand has dropped back down you move the gravel cleaner across a couple of inches and clean another spot.

fluttermoth · Sep 27, 2018

I use my thumb over the end of the pipe to stop the flow for a moment, and that lets the sand fall back into the tank.

You will, almost invariably, suck up some of the sand, but that's not a problem. You just give it a quick rinse in the bucket and tip it back in. Try not to get it all over your plants

Essjay · Sep 28, 2018

What the others haven't mentioned is that with sand you hover the end of the siphon tube just above the gravel and make little swirling motions which lifts the debris off the sand to where it can be sucked up. Unlike with gravel, you don't push the end of the tube into sand. You will suck up some sand but if you use a bucket just empty the tank water away carefully, wash the sand and put it back in the tank.

Sarah73 · Sep 28, 2018

I use my siphon easily without sucking up a lot of sand. As I have many corydoras, so I'm not new to cleaning the sand (once a week). You can also just get some panty hose from Wal-Mart or something, get a rubber band, and wrap the panty hose around the intake while the rubber band is holding the panty hose on. Sucks up much less sand.

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