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How Do I separate 1mm sand and Colombo Florabase?

A

Antipofish

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I only have the substrate left in my Aquience tank now, and it is Colombo Florabase capped with Unipac 1mm Samoa Sand. Where I pulled up the Nymphea it has dragged some of the florabase up from underneath and I wondered if there is a useful way of separating them both ? Or am I better of filling with water and syphoning as much sand off as possible then when I get to a level where its mixed, syphon and discard, and then when I get down to pure florabase syphone that off into a separate bucket ?

Just wondered if anyone had any rinkydink ideas :) 8)
 
HarryRobinson said:
Sieve it all to collect the florabse and let the sand through perhapss? :)

Yeah fair call Harry but our sieve is too fine and wont allow the sand through :(
 
Hi Chris, no suggestions on the sand but great to see 'rinkydink' being given a further airing :p
 
Ady34 said:
Hi Chris, no suggestions on the sand but great to see 'rinkydink' being given a further airing :p

Yeah its gonna become word of the year ;)
 
owenprescott said:
Was just watching this video and the guy used a bonsai "screen" to separate the soil. Maybe they are cheap on bonsai websites and would do the job? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc0TDdF_GjU

Cheers Owen, that looks useful, I will see if I can find any cheap enough. Given me another idea for a "make your own" version though.... Cheap cake tin with lots of tiny holes of a suitable size drilled in the bottom. Could be time consuming to make but is an alternative :) I appreciate the suggestion and will be making a trip to the local garden centre later :thumbup:
 
When I swapped my sand on top of fluval stratum to fluval stratum on top of sand I used a green colander to seive the sand from the substrate. Was £1 from a £1 shop. Started about 5pm and all finshed and planted back by midnight for a 180l tank. Did damage some plants as I didn't notice that some of them were not under water in the temporary storage bowl I used until I replanted. :sick:

I did this because no matter how hard I tried the granules of fluval substrate worked their way through the sand, eventually, collecting in little piles.

I used large 40l buckets to wash the sand through the colander. The fluval collected fine, with very little sand attached and the sand was virtually free of fluval. What I did collect was a large number of bones from a large Plec (12" odd) I had that died and was stripped to the bone by the other fish before I found it.

Much better with sand underneath. If any sand does break surface due currents and/or me plant shuffling it is easy to cover up again with more substrate and excess sand grains just fall back through the substrate.
 
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