Fish Poop On Sand

[josh_g]

I'm so sick of looking at fish poop just sitting there on top of the sand substrate. All the videos I see on youtube where tanks have sand for substrate and stocked with the same fish there is no fish poop in sight. But in my tank it is just everywhere. I'm forever trying to clear it up with the gravel cleaner. I even have an electric gravel cleaner but there is still always so much poop I run 2 FX6's on a 6x2x2 tank and do 25% water change weekly. My stock is 1 red devil, 1 jaguar cichlid, 1 green terror, 1 cubid cichlid, 1 mayan cichlid, 1 jack dempsey & a sailfin plec. All fish are around the 4-6" mark I'm just so sick of looking at fish poop lol. I might switch from sand to a nice black gravel hopefully where my tanks background is black it wont make the tank look to dark.
 
How does everyone else with sand substrate get rid off all the poop. Do these people on youtube know something i don't 

 

[508]

I think these videos are taken right after a water change and hourly substrate cleaning session. I just got frustrated with it and switched to black sand, works a treat.

 

[Dandyman3]

+1 on this! I have being trying to find the best method to get rid of all the dirt and clumps which lay around in the bottom. As you say you see some beautiful tanks which are spotless. 
 
I am upgrading my filter too in the aim that it will help clear it up a bit more than my current underpowered ones. 

 

[josh_g]

It's a nightmare even after a weekly waterchange and ive siphoned up as much poo as possible it still seems to be everywhere I'm gunna change my substrate to Pettex black sand. Hopefully the poop won't show up as much on this.

 

[sawickib]

Hmmm, i have 1 fx5 and 2 55/75 aqueon quiet flows, on my 6x2x2 and i also have white sand, i never seem to notice any poop at all. 
 
It may just be because of my geophagus moving it around into the filters constantly, but i also do 50-75% water changes weekly. Its got a lot of fish as well, including a 12" L25 haha

 

[josh_g]

maybe im just unlucky.. or my fish have IBS lol

 

[ShinySideUp]

I have sand in the last downstream third of my tank and the poo accumulates there but there is a way I have found to at least cover it and keep it in one place -- a piece of wood. For some reason that a good fluid dynamics expert could explain, the poo accumulates under the wood, which is about 4" x 4" of floor area. All I have to do every week is turn off the filter to stop the flow, carefully lift the wood so as not to disturb the detritus and then siphon it out. It's not an absolute solution but it works pretty well, you just have to have the piece of wood within about a foot of the outlet basket of the filter.

 

[Fishmanic]

I use two filters, a penguin 200 and a hydro 40 gal sponge filter in my 29 gal  white sanded tank and see very little detrius on the sand between w/c.   I think the sponge filter gets a lot of it as it sits at the bottom of the tank and I have a powerful air tube going to it.   

 

[attibones]

My sand is black and still all I can see is guppy and snail poo. Now that I've rehomed the last two guppies and platy, I'm hoping it will clear up a bit, but I can't ever clean the sand well enough. When it was just gravel, it was easier to keep clean. I also had a tank with different black sand a few years back and the poop was much easier removed with a water change and kept relatively clear until the next week. Unfortunately, I don't feel like spending twenty to thirty dollars on twenty pounds of black sand, when I can pay six dollars for fifty pounds of black blasting grit. Humph. My other two tanks have gravel in them right now and I don't have much of an issue at all with visible poop.

 

[Alasse]

I personally much prefer to see the poop and know i need to remove it, than have it hidden on the substrate