zeddy

what is the best way to clean live sand or is it just an uphill battle. i tryed my gravel vac from my fresh water but it took sand with it so i can only skim the top. i'm pretty new to salt so i'm unsure. i dont know if its possible but i would like my sand at least somewhat white again.

agsansoo

This is one of the reasons I went barebottom.
If you have less than 4" of sand you have to vacuum a lot. If you have a DSB, just the top 1-1/2". With the correct flow of water over the top of the sand, it should stay white. That's if you have sugar size sand, anything larger than sugar size will get algae on it. Thus looking brown or green !

zeddy

i have very fine sand what is DSB and how do i use it

hockeyref88

Well the way I've seen it done with smaller tanks anyways is this: You take a hose (no gravel vac, hose only) with some buckets. Start your siphon and siphon sand and water together into the buckets. You'll see the dirty water seperate from the sand and you creat a sink to clean your other stuff (filter media and such) in. You then drain off the dirty water and put the sand back in. My understanding is live sand does not stay live sand for long. Its basically for getting your tank going. Thats the way I've been told and shown at one of the good fish stores I go too. I am no expert but I have watched them do it many times.

sirdarksol

DSB is "Deep Sand Bed". From agsansoo's post, I would guess that a DSB stays alive, likely because it's deep enough to contain the layers needed to maintain live sand.

ThisGuy

also you can do a remote deep sand bed in your sump/refugium too i like that idea better than in the main tank.

zeddy

i just started SW, i have all the stuff but it all hangs on the tank, (witch looks like but is functional). how deep should a sand bed be mine is about 2in.

hockeyref88

I think its a personal preference.

agsansoo

A lot of people use a 2" sand bed. Just use your gravel vacuum every week during your water change, to stir up the sand bed. Do you have powerheads in your tank ? If so how many ?

zeddy

i have 2 powerheads but 1 is running my skimmer

agsansoo

What size is your tank ? Any live rock ?

zeddy

33gal with 35lbs live rock

agsansoo

If you just setup your tank, the cloudiness will settle. Can you take some picture of your tank ?

zeddy

the tank has been set up for some time and has some resedence in it i want to know how to controle the algea on the sand so i can keep it white. this is just when i added a few things, the pic is about 6 weeks old.

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