Question: Sand as Substrate

[Glitterstars]

Is sand in a cold water tank hard to keep clean? I had a salt water tank in the past, & it was difficult to keep it clean.

[Martin21114]

I have not found it to be. The hardest part is the initial set up with all the washing and dust. After that it's pretty easy, just don't lay it too thick and suck up the funk with a turkey baster.

[jessicaanne]

Originally Posted by Martin21114

suck up the funk with a turkey baster.

How do you manage that?! (No, seriously, I'd love to know) I tried it once and for starters it spread the gunk everywhere, secondly the big poops wouldn't even go in and thirdly whatever it did pick up just fell back out

I just siphon the sand when I'm doing water changes and whatever ends up in the bucket I swish around in the old tank water to separate any yuck bits (kind of like what you do when your cleaning the sand in the first place to separate dust etc) and then I scoop the sand up to put back in the tank.

[HodgeaPodge]

Originally Posted by jessicaanne

How do you manage that?! (No, seriously, I'd love to know) I tried it once and for starters it spread the gunk everywhere, secondly the big poops wouldn't even go in and thirdly whatever it did pick up just fell back out

It takes some practice, but you have to make sure you squeeze the air out before you stick it in the water and bring it back up before it gets full. That's how I do it anyway.

[totallyrad]

The way I add sand to my tanks is after I wash it thoroughly in a bucket til the water runs clear, I add sand with 3-5 inches of water (it doesn't really matter) This way all the air bubbles come to the top and the sand falls to the bottom. Be sure to stir the sand initially to double check there are no air bubbles in the sand. and you're done :]

And to respond to the original poster, Sand is extremely easy to keep clean. All you have to do is suck up the axie's waste off the top (with a turkey baster) and you're done Versus having big rocks where you can't really suck up the waste at all or even find it.