Help - My Tank Constantly Needs Cleaning.

[Barlow]

Hi everyone.

Having read all the positive reviews about the benefits of sand substrates I recently took the plunge and switched from my gravel base. I'm happy to say that I really like the new look - plus my fish and plants seem to be enjoying it too.

However I'm having a really tough time keeping it clean.

My problem isn't with any difficulty in using a vac - on the contrary I have become a master in sucking up all the dirt from the bottom.

Instead my issue is how often I have to do it. I currently have to vac every day to keep the sand clean, and even then it gets covered in loads of poo in a matter of hours. I'm happy to clean the tank regularly but having to do this every day is driving me mental.

How often do you all vacuum the bottom of your tanks? I've read that many people only have to clean the sand when they do their weekly water change but if I was to wait that long then my tank would look horrific. I really don't understand why mine is so bad.

Is there anything I can do to cut down on the amount of cleaning I'm doing? My tank is fairly well stocked, and I know the plec produces a lot of waste despite his small size, but it has far fewer fish than many tanks I see. Would snails help break down the waste matter? Or do you think I could add more low level/carpetting plants to hide the poo?

Any advice anyone can give would be really helpful. I'd really rather not go back to gravel as I do prefer the look that sand gives (for the short time it's clean), but life was certainly far easier before I switched.

Many thanks
Jon

 

[DJ ArKaDaRkA]

i had to get rid of my bristlenose plec because it made so much mess on the sand

 

[Jazzzz]

cory fish stir it up and trumpet snails should hide it a bit for you

 

[katykaye]

I am having the same problem to be honest. Its driving me mad

I like the look of the sand but it constantly looks dirty - I and thinking of changing back to gravel.

Maybe we are missing something and all the sand lovers here can tell us what to

 

[puppyjess123]

Well previously I tried to put in plant substrate but it all went wrong...Plecos and cories stirred it up so it was mega cloudy and you couldn't see ANYTHING! Now with just sand its fine, my filter disturbs the bottom so all the poo comes up and then gets sucked into the filter.

 

[markandhisfish]

the reason your tank appears to need cleaning more often is that with gravel the waste drops in between the stones whereas with sand it all just sits on the surface . so your tank is no dirtier you just see it all. a good size group of cories can help as can snails depending on your fish stocking. also depending on your tank size and stocking a couple of earth eaters will keep the sand turning over too. i have 12 cories and 2 geophagus surinamensis which keep my sand moving nicely. i usually just clean the sand on the weekly water change and just give it a quick once over if it needs it in between.

another option is as jess said to have your filtyer set up in such a way that the return outlet is low in the tank giving a current at thew bottom to lift the waste into the water column where it can be removed by the filter

 

[flippajh]

I've had a nightmare with Silver sand, just couldn't ever clear the cloudyness and it always looked awful, so this weekend I emptied the whole lot out, cleaned the tank up and put new sand, but River sand this time and I really, really, really washed it out ffor ages, until no matter how much water I blasted at it, it was running crystal clear.

I only put it in yesterday, but already the fish seem happier and the water is crystal clear, which never happened with the silver sand. I don't think I washed it enough, before I put it in the tank.

I also have about 30/40 Malaysian Trumpet snails and corys.

 

[OohFeeshy]

A bit more current in the tank/changing the position of the filter output so it moves waste off the sand will help.

 

[always4lora]

it's good to ahve the food/poop on top of the sand , at least you know its not in the gravel rotting away. The filter can take up a bit of sand when you mix the sand over to make sure you get no gas pockets building up but it's easily cleaned out. i have a filter either end of the tank which like above does help keep the mess from dropping to the bottom and moves it to either one of the filters. I'd never go back to gravel cleaning gravel takes forever compared to sand.

 

[liamt2k6]

i was concidering switching to sand for my red empress's but i dont hink i will bother now

 

[Jazzzz]

to be fair mine looks dirty to but i just gave up cleaning it

 

[Barlow]

Thanks everyone. It seems like there's no magic solution - although I thought that that was probably the case. I've tried moving my filter without much success so I guess I'll just have to keep on with my regular cleaning (that or start dosing the tank with Imodium).

Cheers
Jon

 

[Kgforlife]

I have a kissing gourami cories and a firemouth almost all day the firemouth spits sand everywhere the kg ocassionaly does and the cories do regulary poo does pile up in certain areas for me not just scattered around every where making it easy to hide. I also have finer sand making it easier to stir up.

 

[snowflake311]

my 36 gal tends to get messy quickly too. But my 55 gal stays clean longer but then again I have less fish in the 55 gal. I have 2 plecos and 2 cichlds poop masters and a school of tetras in my 36 gal.

I clean my tank every 5 days. I don't mind a bit of poop it looks natrual. When I clean it I make sure to suck up as much as I can then fill the tank with my hose spraying water in the back so if blows all thee crap to the front. Then I stope filling it and suck up the left overs. If you get as much of the poop you can up it will take longer to get dirty.