How To Reduce Cloudy Water From Sand

[DrSlackBladder]

+1 on the bottle method!

 

[Skydz]

does the bottle trick work on fish poop or jsut cleaning sand?

 

[DrSlackBladder]

It's a quick and very easy method of cleaning and introducing new sand into your aquarium without fuss, mess or much cloudiness. Nothing to do with cleaning existing sand substrates.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

It's a quick and very easy method of cleaning and introducing new sand into your aquarium without fuss, mess or much cloudiness. Nothing to do with cleaning existing sand substrates.

I do wonder though, how effective it would be to use that same method to clean the substrate.... Now I've got to do some experimenting!

 

[DrSlackBladder]

I expect it would be effective cleaning used sand too, but the tough part will be getting wet sand into the bottle to start with (of course dry sand straight from the bag just pours in quickly using a funnel!)....

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Yup... that's the experimenting part.... It should be interesting - ultimately, a system might be needed...


Here's what I am thinking - Use a regular vacuum hose as usual, and just have it fill a bottle - suck up the sand with the debris - and have this overflow into another spot - bucket, sink or garden - then when the bottle is close to being full of sand - do the sand trick back into the tank - catching the majority of the detritus (hopefully) in the bottle.... I might have to give this a try.

 

[DrSlackBladder]

.....you could be on to something there......!

 

[zain611]

So if i put a bottle in a tank with the cap screwed on and i quickly take it out will it start a mini suction to take in the debris

 

[eaglesaquarium]

That's not what I meant...

 

[zain611]

You know i just thought that can be a good way to to water changes probably fast

 

[eaglesaquarium]

The goal would be to remove detritus over a large span of the substrate. Ultimately, you want to get as much of it out as possible. But, the bigger problem with the method you described is that there would only be a "suction" if the bottle is upright (hole at the top), which wouldn't pull in the detritus from the substrate level. The reason the bottle method works when full of sand is that as the sand falls out of the bottom, it creates a void in the bottle and the pressure difference between the bottle and the water causes the water to shoot into the bottle. So, unless by "empty" bottle you meant truly empty (vacuum), you wouldn't get anything off the bottom of the tank.

The goal with a water change, besides removing water (and nitrates, etc.) is also to remove the detritus from the substrate, and collect some water to rinse the filter media off to keep the filter working at an efficient level. For me, speed is not a factor at all. During the water change process, I get some "me" time and I get to study the tank closely, inspect the fish, etc.

 

[zain611]

Yeah for a 215l tank that would take about 2 hours to do but i probably get used to it

 

[zain611]

You could get a couple of 2 or more litre bottles and put that in the tank to suck up the water and that could probably take out a quarter of the water but you can empty abit of the water into a bucket using a gravel vac if you need to clean the substrate