Sand Problems

[JamesFish]

Hi All,

The tank was designed for a heavy cory population but I didn't allow for car head lights flicking through the blind slightly spooking them so they had to move to another tank.

The tank is a standard 3ft with a Eheim ecco pro 300 and eheim 2015 running on it. The fish are all healthy and happy coloured up and acting as normal a few fry recently added are moving along ok. The ecco pro comes in at an angle about 45 degrees and is about an inch below the water line. The 2015 is opposite end of the tank next to the inlet for the ecco pro.

The sand is silica sand its about 1-3cm thick and I have a small snail population. I do have some plants including some giant valis that's over 5ft tall now in it. Its hitting the top and going full length of the tank.

I'm suffering a bit of debris build up along the bottom of the tank noticeable near ornaments or in dents of the sand. Its not massive but frequent and unsightly as previously the tank has been spot less.

Largest fish in the tank are 2x farlowealla 1 x male ancistrus and an ammo shrimp. Rest is tetra's so apart from catfish and the shrimp nothing massively messy.

Having a read round some people suggest its a water flow problem or my filters arient up to it. The ecco pro 300 is brand new and sitting to the right of the tank. Only modification is to add 3x jbl bonitrate x sachets to it and removed some media to make way for them.

Tempted to switch to gravel to hide the issue and doubt any of the fish in the tank would mind but have I missed something on keeping this clear?

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I'm suffering a bit of debris build up along the bottom of the tank noticeable near ornaments or in dents of the sand. Its not massive but frequent and unsightly as previously the tank has been spot less. ..........Tempted to switch to gravel to hide the issue and doubt any of the fish in the tank would mind but have I missed something on keeping this clear?

That is one of the great advantages of sand, any debris sits on top of it. The mulm you can see isn't very polluting, all the sugars and proteins that can be utilised by the heterotrophic bacteria have already been used. What is left is largely inert structural carbohydrates.

If you have gravel particles will tend to fall through the interstices, and be hidden. This doesn't matter for the mulm (which has a very low bioload), but any fish food that fall through will be high in nutrients and can cause water quality issues. Because of this you then need to clean your gravel, and I'm not a great fan of disturbing the substrate in planted tanks.

You just need to syphon out the debris if it annoys you.

Having a read round some people suggest its a water flow problem or my filters arient up to it........The ecco pro 300 is brand new and sitting to the right of the tank.

Others may disagree but you don't want to use your filter as a syphon, you just want the ammonia (NH3/NH4+), that is continually diffusing from the bioload, in the filter, nothing else and then you want all the filter material to remain aerobic.

Oxygen is the key to biological filtration.

I have a pre-filter sponge on the intake to keep debris out of the filter, and I clean this on a regular basis.

I do have some plants including some giant valis that's over 5ft tall now in it. Its hitting the top and going full length of the tank....... Only modification is to add 3x jbl bonitrate x sachets to it and removed some media to make way for them.

You don't need the chemical media, it is serving no useful purpose in your tank. Your plants are already removing the the NO3 that the chemical media removes. Plants are a much better option for nitrogen removal (they also take up NH4+) than chemical media, partially because they form a negative feedback loop, where increased fixed nitrogen leads to increased plant growth which leads to increased nitrogen uptake etc. Because your Vallis has reached the waters surface it will benefit from higher levels of CO2 via diffusion from the atmosphere.

cheers Darrel

[pleconut]

Like the look of it but not a fan of sand personally is easier too keep clean as mentioned in last post gravel is more likely to collect waste such as uneaten food which is more harmful you probably know cories are better off with sand there's a couple of options I would take here in a larger tank i would get fish that would significantly disturb sand regularly so any debris would be filtered out but sand could end up on your plants or plants may be dug up. Best option in a 3 ft tank is you could fit a circulation pump adjustable flow rate is better as if it's too powerful it will just blow plants around or uproot them put sand and pump debris round your tank at one end have sand level slightly higher at same end of the circulation pump it would move debris to opposite end where you could either syphon it out daily or have an internal box filter opposite at level of pump to remove debris moved along by circulation pump. Hope this helps Teresa

[pleconut]

Just to clarify circulation pump close to sand level but not intake where sand could be sucked in. Teresa

[JamesFish]

Thanks for the input. I will have a think on what to do.

Im looking at my 18" that has perfect clear sand but it has got 8 loaches knocking it up for the filter or just not creating big mess to start with. The filters allot closer to the sand on in take but never throws sand out or has it inside it so assume its not taking any up.

[bekateen]

Just be careful when sand is near the intake. I use Aqueon HOB filters and they can suck fine sand up into the filter. The sand sticks in the magnetic impeller area and can damage the impeller shaft. I always add a pre-filter intake foam block to my HOBs to catch tank debris and this sand, which really lowers the amount of sand entering the filter impeller area.

[pleconut]

If you were to fit a circulation pump you may want to check filter a week or so after fitting it if it has sand going into it could damage impellers you could slow down flow of the circulation pump if this was happening or get a pre filter it's a bit of trying to get balance between not blowing plants around not clogging filter and removing debris at the same time hence reason for adjustable flow i have an adjustable 450 litre per hour but not at full power on my 4ft tank so for a 3ft you would probably need a lower flow rate.Teresa