how to clean the sand in my dirty bottom?

vibe666

sorry, couldn't resist the thread title, but it's a serious question.

it's a small 55L marine tank currently home to two clown fish, with a live sand substrate, but it's starting to get a little dirty and i'm wondering how i should clean the sand or if there's something else i should be doing that i'm not?

Silverfish

I have a sandy-ish bottom on my trop tank, I use the gravel vacuum but when the substrate reaches the top, I put my finger over the end of the outflow tube and let it go back down to the bottom - keeping the vacuum just above the substrate so it doesn't start swirling around the tank when it comes out.

To add, this is time consuming and awkward.

fungun

ivesand in my cichlid tank - i just do what i can in the open every water change but maybe twice or 3 times a year i take everything out and really give it a good clean.

In terms of taking up the crap without sand, what I do is swirl the siphon end around in a circle to create a kind of a low whirlpool which gets the crap a little bit off the surface - ten you can hoover it up without catching sand also.

Do also remember to disturb the sand right to the bottom every now and again to stop gas building up

vibe666

yeah, i was thinking of stirring it gently with a bbq skewer or something like that to break up the bottom slightly. I have a fierce powerful external pump on it now, so i might just do that and let the pump do some of the hard work.