What a mess

herefshyfishy

herefshyfishy

Member
I recently put in my clean-up crew. I have a 65 gallon. 50Lbs LR and 60Lbs sand.
I added 5 Tongan nassarious snails
12 Astrea snails
5 Turbos
3 Red Hermits
They are doing a great jobs cleaning the LR and the sand.... BUT there is sooooooo much "number 2" ALLover the sand... should i just vaccum it up? :help:
 
mandarin w

mandarin w

Member
You should never vacuum the sand. Have one of your powerhead blow so it blows across the sand, you don't want your sand to be blown around, but you want the waterflow to pick up unsightly messes and push it up in the water column. Then it can pulled out in the filters.
 
herefshyfishy

herefshyfishy

Member
you cant just skim the top of the sand.... without touching the sand.... There is a lot i didnt know they did so much "business"....
 
mandarin w

mandarin w

Member
To tell you the truth. If you are very careful, and do not disturb the sand bed you should be ok. But the truth is, Water flow is your best friend. I don't ever even see fishy, or snail poo on my sand, ever. The water flow takes care of it before I have to deal with it. But the biggest reason you need to get the powerheads to flow correctly is not only so you don't see the poo, but to also take care of potintal red slime issues before they start. And it looks like that may be an issue for you down the road if it is not taken care of. The poo sitting on the sand is supplying high nutrients for the red slime to start developing. Just a thought I wanted to put out there for you.
 
herefshyfishy

herefshyfishy

Member
That is very helpfull thank you... How do you have you PH's pointed.... I have one on each side... One high on the left and one low on the right... I thought it was working well.. I dont have mechanical filtration.. I have a Coralife ss125 Skimmer HOB. but its not getting the crap on the bottom.
 
mandarin w

mandarin w

Member
One way to see if your powerhead are getting the bottom good enough, is to watch the food when you feed your fish. Check to make sure that the food never lands on the bottom of the tank. If it does, then try to lower it just a hair, How I have mine probly wont help you much, I have a full blown reef tank, and I have three very large powerheads, and two returns with a large return pump on it. I have about 7000 gallons flowing thru my tank on hour.
 
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