....

[zchauvin]

Sand stuck to glass, sand in water column, gunk in enter column, crap all over tank and sand ect, gbr piping surface, canister filter and its hoses full of brown ****.... all of this within 2 minutes after a 65g wc on my 75g tank. Should I just give you guys super great deals and get rid of all this crap or does someone have some super good advise other than patience. Oh, and add .25 ammonia and nitrite readings to that too.

[roundfishross]

get rid of tha dang sand!.....problem solved!

[geodehunter]

Bare bottom tank. Works great for me and I'm a newbie.

[Sean Buehrle]

Sand is sand, ever eat at the beach ? No matter how much you try it always gets in your food. The stuff looks nice but is a pain sometimes.

You have to clean the algae off walls every day or it builds up.

Dont like sand? Get rid of it at your next waterchange, suck it up and throw it out. Or just accept it.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[discuspaul]

get rid of tha dang sand!.....problem solved!

Yes, I would syphon it out & get rid of it - I sure don't know what kind of sand it is that you got, but it's not behaving like any sand I've ever used. I've never had sand sticking/clinging to the glass, nor flying around in the water column ! (Are you running some kind of strong power bar/filter to do that ?)
Get some white silica pool filter sand from a pool/spa/hot tub supply store & be done with it.

[Vee]

Keep the sand 1/4" and less...Use pool sand....put a sponge prefilter on your filter intake...

[Darrell Ward]

Sand stuck to glass, sand in water column, gunk in enter column, crap all over tank and sand ect, gbr piping surface, canister filter and its hoses full of brown ****.... all of this within 2 minutes after a 65g wc on my 75g tank. Should I just give you guys super great deals and get rid of all this crap or does someone have some super good advise other than patience. Oh, and add .25 ammonia and nitrite readings to that too.

Make sure your canister intake is slightly past the halfway point in the tank, so you can do 50% water changes with the filter running. This way, you won't blow s#*t back into the tank during filter start up. Change out sand to a fresh layer of pool filter sand, with just enough to cover the bottom. Normal pool filter sand is quite heavy, it should sink like a rock, not stick to the glass, or stay in the water column. I don't know what you have. Also, never feed foods in a tank with sand that create tiny particles, like brine shrimp, beefheart, or some freeze dried foods. You can also use micron filter pads in your canister. Buy a Seachem ammonia test kit. You'll never get an accurate ammonia reading using Prime with any other test. If all this fails, just throw the fish out in the yard, the tank in the dumpster, and buy a dog.:D LOL! J/K

[mwdw]

can't go wrong with pool filter sand. easy to keep clean and is cheap!

[mmorris]

What's the brown ****?

[Rod]

What's the brown ****?

Politely cursing diatoms perhaps!! lol

[mmorris]

Maybe! But in the hose? I thought maybe sludge.

[zchauvin]

Sorry guys I just saw all the reply on this. My canister intakes are below half way point but I try and turn them off so they don't splash and make water hit my lights. I can't see with no lights!!! Lol and I tries removing a whole bunch of the sand and did actually. A five gallon bucket full to be exact so now I only have a little. You can even see glass in some spots and its still bad. I do feed beefheart and brine shrimp lol so I'm guessing that's a bad idea. I've got a HOB and two canisters on tank but the water isn't like swirling in there, its only like 160g total filtration so a little more than double. Everything has a prefilter on it also. Since I've got so many low rated filters on the tank I was thinking about putting all fish in a tub with there tank water, draining tank and removing all sand, putting new sand and replacing all three filters with only one brand new fluval 405( I've got eheims that aren't auto prime and a HOB that's only rated for 20g tanks lol ) and just put the seeded media from eheim pro into fluval. This would get rid of the sand that I think is in filters as well, provide me with only one very efficient and easy to use filter that has a whole side just for filter floss pre filtering, and potentially get rid of all my problems. If you guys have any thoughts on this I would love to heat them before I go and spend even more money on just filtration muchless anything else... And just to throw it in there. The 4 greens I got from snookn are colored up after three days and looking great!!!

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[Sean Buehrle]

I really dont know alot about sand in a fresh tank but i have had a couple reef tanks. Seems to me that if i was ever messing with the sand it got messy fast. Bacteria is what holds it together, it almost compacts itself.

I dunno if you will ever solve this problem with the factors present, stirring it up, good amount of waterflow.
Is there another type of sand you could try?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[zchauvin]

I really dont know alot about sand in a fresh tank but i have had a couple reef tanks. Seems to me that if i was ever messing with the sand it got messy fast. Bacteria is what holds it together, it almost compacts itself.

I dunno if you will ever solve this problem with the factors present, stirring it up, good amount of waterflow.
Is there another type of sand you could try?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah I have almost all of it out and I'll try and get some different stuff tomorrow

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[strawberryblonde]

I just removed all the sand from 3/4 of my tank two days ago. I used to use gravel, but thought that sand would be easier and less messy. NOT! lol

The sand was a constant pain in the butt to vacuum and I kept having suction issues, which I attributed to my siphon method, not to the sand itself. So, I took out the sand and only left a small patch of it, along with a very small patch of gravel because that's where I needed to put the DW that has eggs on it over in that corner and they were upset enough with all the cleaning and moving of stuff. Figured I can remove the rest another time.

Soooo, now the sand is out, my plants are in two oversized coffee mugs and there's just a few river rocks in the basic eating area. Night and day lemme tell ya! I'm now totally sold on using BB tanks for raising discus. I'm not afraid of food sneaking into places where I can't find it and the siphon now works great for picking up the poop and little food bits. I'm in the middle of a WC as we speak and the vacuuming portion only took 10 minutes, leaving me 30 minutes to sit here and type. =)

Try getting rid of the rest of your sand for now, then rinse out your canister filters in tank water and scrub out the inside of the canister to remove any diatoms. I get the brown gunk in my pump tubing too, but I ignore it and only clean the tubing every few months. It doesn't hurt anything so long as it isn't impeding flow too much.

Hope your tank gets easier to clean soon...I know how discouraging it can be when things just aren't going smoothly.

[zchauvin]

I just removed all the sand from 3/4 of my tank two days ago. I used to use gravel, but thought that sand would be easier and less messy. NOT! lol

The sand was a constant pain in the butt to vacuum and I kept having suction issues, which I attributed to my siphon method, not to the sand itself. So, I took out the sand and only left a small patch of it, along with a very small patch of gravel because that's where I needed to put the DW that has eggs on it over in that corner and they were upset enough with all the cleaning and moving of stuff. Figured I can remove the rest another time.

Soooo, now the sand is out, my plants are in two oversized coffee mugs and there's just a few river rocks in the basic eating area. Night and day lemme tell ya! I'm now totally sold on using BB tanks for raising discus. I'm not afraid of food sneaking into places where I can't find it and the siphon now works great for picking up the poop and little food bits. I'm in the middle of a WC as we speak and the vacuuming portion only took 10 minutes, leaving me 30 minutes to sit here and type. =)

Try getting rid of the rest of your sand for now, then rinse out your canister filters in tank water and scrub out the inside of the canister to remove any diatoms. I get the brown gunk in my pump tubing too, but I ignore it and only clean the tubing every few months. It doesn't hurt anything so long as it isn't impeding flow too much.

Hope your tank gets easier to clean soon...I know how discouraging it can be when things just aren't going smoothly.

Thanks strawberry. My only concern is that its a biotope display tank so I don't just want bb. Is it a lot harder with gravel like jcardona has??

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[Sean Buehrle]

Thanks strawberry. My only concern is that its a biotope display tank so I don't just want bb. Is it a lot harder with gravel like jcardona has??

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

Is it possible to use arrgonite sand in a discus tank? That stuff is pretty sweet looking.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[zchauvin]

Is it possible to use arrgonite sand in a discus tank? That stuff is pretty sweet looking.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Good question. I'm going to pick up sand tomorrow and am trying to get ideas. I don't know whether to get pfs or silica play box sand ect...

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[Darrell Ward]

Is it possible to use arrgonite sand in a discus tank? That stuff is pretty sweet looking.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's made from coral skeltons, which of course is pure calcium. It will raise your Ph up into the eights easy.

[zchauvin]

Ok I changed 80% water, cleaned entire filter in tank water and replaced substrate with some super naturals carribsea sunset gold sand, can I use the water clarifier that came with the bag or do you suggest just letting it settle?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[Darrell Ward]

Dust from sand usually clears from the water column in a few hours with the filters running.

[zchauvin]

Dust from sand usually clears from the water column in a few hours with the filters running.

Would it hurt to use the little packet?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[Sean Buehrle]

Would it hurt to use the little packet?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

Probably not, its just some sort of water clarifier. Use it and do a waterchange.

You said you cleaned your filter real well, whatcha got goin for biological filtration?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[zchauvin]

Probably not, its just some sort of water clarifier. Use it and do a waterchange.

You said you cleaned your filter real well, whatcha got goin for biological filtration?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sorry not sure of difference, just have a eheim Eco pro 80 canister

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[strawberryblonde]

You can add the clarifier. I used it but didn't notice a lot of difference, so then I just did a second 80% WC and bingo, the water was nice and clear within an hour. I do love the carribsea sand...it's gawwwwgeous!

[zchauvin]

You can add the clarifier. I used it but didn't notice a lot of difference, so then I just did a second 80% WC and bingo, the water was nice and clear within an hour. I do love the carribsea sand...it's gawwwwgeous!

I agree and its very fine grains and a lot better than the pfs I had.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[Chunks]

I rang around and found some pool filter sand for sale the guy said they sell two types, coarse and fine, which should I get? He also said it was made from ground up glass, will this be ok?


---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-34.470928,150.871598

[3dees]

I have a biotope and use Carib-Sea sand. it much more expensive (1.00 per lb.) than pool filter sand, but I could'nt cloud my water if I tried. I use a python for wc's and have a bucket under the faucet. the sand that I suck up is cleaned and then I just use a cup and dump it back in. it a pretty heavy sand and well worth the cost.

[TURQ64]

Well, I'm perfectly happy with the type of PFS I use. As I mentioned in a similar thread a while back, the quality of sand is a regional thing, due to aquisition.. I just bought three more bags for a 180 and another 120....Never had a cloudy issue, and I prewash.

[Darrell Ward]

I got some sand made by Estes once. Best to leave that stuff on the shelf. It floats! Totally useless.

[Rod]

I rang around and found some pool filter sand for sale the guy said they sell two types, coarse and fine, which should I get? He also said it was made from ground up glass, will this be ok?


---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-34.470928,150.871598

We can get silica sand from Strabroke Island here in Brisbane, looks great in a discus tank and cheap as. Landscape places sell it as playsand. Maybe you can get it down in the 'gong.

[Chunks]

We can get silica sand from Strabroke Island here in Brisbane, looks great in a discus tank and cheap as. Landscape places sell it as playsand. Maybe you can get it down in the 'gong.

Thanks rod I'll check it out. I guess I could just go down to the beach and grab some :) but I wasn't sure about the sand. The other thing is I really want sand that is as white as I can get as I don't like the yellow look.

Landscaping places... Good idea!