water change with sand substate

[kevhodge]

i have up graded my tank from a 23" tank with gravel to a 36" planted tank with a sand substrate. all the fish have adapted to the new tank and the plants are growing like mad, but i normally changed the water using a gravel syphon, the same now sucks up the sand, i need to clean the tank as i do a water change, but is there a way to syphon off the water without sucking up the sand substrate?

 

[holygeezx]

Here are a few ways that I do this. One way is to swirl the gravel vac over the sand to kick up the stuff on the sand and then syphon it out. Another is to slightly put the gravel vac into the sand and pull it out before any sand gets sucked up. This way the sand falls out but the crud gets sucked up. Hope this helps.

 

[pbecot01]

The light sand dust will get sucked up, but the heavy main sand will fall back out. So don't worry about the sand getting sucked up... just let it fall back out of the syphon.

 

[sublime1184]

You could have searched the forum.

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48287&highlight=vacuum+sand