Problems since switching to sand

[steve@dvdlard]

A while back I switched to Play Pit sand in my tank, I followed all instructions and run the sand through with a hose pipe until clear before adding to the tank. Everything looked fine, the water cleared very quickly and the fish seemed perfectly happy.

However I now have two problems, the first of these is I can't find any cleaning device that can take the waste off the top of the sand. My gravel pump doesn't pick anything up, so the surface of the sand is getting to look pretty horrible.

Secondly I'm getting a real algae problem, Green algae is constantly spreading up from the surface of the sand across the glass and all the ornaments are covered in a brown hairy algae. I was wondering if the second problem is because of all the waste on the sand surface.

The fish seem perfectly healthy but the tank is starting to look pretty ugly.

 

[@ombomb]

Did you read through this pinned topic?

From what I understand the best way to clean the sand it to hold your gravel vac about .25 of inch above the sand and move it in small circles to create an eddy that will disturb the waste enough to be pick up by the vacuum.

There is a very good chance that the algae is there because of the cleanliness of the tank and an increase in Nirates.

 

[steve@dvdlard]

I've tried that with the pump that I've got and I can't seem to get it to work, which is why I'm wondering if I need a different vac. If anyone can point me to a website where I can buy a suitable product in the UK that would be great.

 

[quintessential]

When I do exactly what you are describing I use a simple syphon, (actually a length of hose about four foot long and half an inch in diameter)
There is plenty of suction and the top up of water into the tank acts a water change. All done in one go.

If you find the hose lifts too much sand out then cut a pop bottle in half and enter the hose into the top, this still gives all the suction, but time for the heavy sand to fall back down whilst the dirt floats up and out.

Quint