Cleaning sand in congo tank

[biggerbang]

I have a recently established congo puffer tank. I have a 5" sand bed but I have trouble keeping it clean. During water changes, if I try to clean the sand, I end up sucking up a decent amount of sand along with the debris and poop. Anyone have suggestions? I was thinking of some sort of sieve with a long handle, but if there's anything else people have been successful with, let me know.

[eieio]

I have a recently established congo puffer tank. I have a 5" sand bed but I have trouble keeping it clean. During water changes, if I try to clean the sand, I end up sucking up a decent amount of sand along with the debris and poop. Anyone have suggestions? I was thinking of some sort of sieve with a long handle, but if there's anything else people have been successful with, let me know.

prevention may be more effective than the cleaning method
how fine is the sand, what kind of siphon are you using, and how often?
how much and how often do you feed him, and what kind of foods?
what's the tank size & filtration?

[biggerbang]

27 Gallon Cube
Eheim Ecco 2232
Using play sand as the substrate.

He eats a guppy a day, from my guppy breeding tank, since he's around 1.5-2 inches. It seems to be some brown algae that's accumulating on my rocks and substrate. I do water changes once a week and I have no idea on the kind of siphon that I'm using.

[eieio]

is the brown algae that you mention the debris that you're trying to pick up?

[biggerbang]

Partly, but it's mostly the poop. It looks like rabbit sized poops.

[eieio]

i pick up "olivia"s poops daily with a dip tube
do you have one?
the brown algae is another matter.........
i had that too and got rid of it by reducing the lighting, and i seem to remember that lowering the phosphate levels helped with the algae also
what are your water parameters?

[biggerbang]

I'm not at home right now, so I can't give you accurate water parameters.

Is a dip tube a gravel vac? Wouldn't that still suck up sand and subsequently lose sand?

[defool89]

i think you may be using too much sand but i could be wrong I only owned a congo for 3 days but my fahaka has white sand. but to your other inquiries: before vacuuming the sand bed turn off all your pumps filter and or power heads and stir the sand very thoroughly. go as deep as the sand goes and stir.
wait at least 5 minutes so all the debris and detritus can settle on the surface of the sand . then, very carefully skim the top of the sand bed over the whole surface area, as best you can without penetrating your sand. at this point their is no need to push into the sand with the vacuum because all the impurities are on the surface and also effectively reducing the amount of sand you suck up, Some sand will still get sucked up though not nearly as much.

why does this work for me? : I believe sand will be the most dense substance in the tank including poop and dead leaves and or fish parts and scales, so the sand falls to the bottom first as the poop and all else slowly falls on top of the sand. be sure to turn off anything that causes and kind of circulation so it limits debris float time and settles quicker on the bottom.

why do you have brown algae? simple, you have excess nutrients settling in certain areas of your tank. sand is not a very good absorber of anything and it kinda seals anything in or out, for example...air can get trapped in your sand for a very long time by not allowing much to pass through its grains. same reason why sand is not very suitable for plants that get most of their nutrients through their roots instead of the leaves. nutrients can not pass into a sand bed so well to nourish root feeding plants, so what happens to all that nitrogen, phosphates iron etc.? ...the answer is that it just sits on the top of the sand. Algae is a microscopic plant as well and could use those minerals, decaying bio-degradable matter for themselves that is pretty much all food to them. unlike most plants they don't get around by cloning themselves or seeding to reproduce and multiply, the spores float in the air we breath and in the air that also oxygenates your tank water opening the door to algae to grow in a place where their is light for photosynthesis, enough of a carbon source to breathe and nutrients like nitrogen, phosphates, iron etc. and in your case the perfect spot is your sand bed.

I promise you if you stir your sand bed and continue to do regular water changes, your algae will get to be minimally invasive.

[RTR]

Brown algae is diatoms. Diatoms flourish in water high in soluble silicates. They are less demanding on light than green algae, so tend to be out-competed by them in tanks. They absolutely require soluble silicates, so the presence of diatoms indicate that your water has such silicates present. Silicates do not recycle in tanks, they must come in with water partials. In this country, your local water supplier will have tested for their presence but may or may not report such to users. If you contact them they will tell you whether or not you water has high soluble silicates. If it does, you will see diatom algae. Phosguard and comparable materials will remove soluble silicates also from water, but it is most effective if the water is pretreated before it goes into the tank. If live plants are used, the phosphate must be replaced in tank water to support the live plants.

HTH