Cleaning glass

G

Goatonfly

New member
I had some brownish algae accumilating on the glass and cleaned it last week. Some areas I couldn't reach now look way worse than before. I also was trying to get the stuff close to the sand and ended up mixing it up a little. It looks like a little bit of diatoms is (are?) coming back in places. Anyone have a similar experience? Maybe I need a thin scraper to reach the glass areas close to rocks.
 
I use a razor blade to scrape my glass. You could get a magnet scraper. Is your tank glass or acrylic? My answer is based on glass.
 
Stuff on the glass is totally normal. You need to get a sponge on a stick kind of cleaner to get those hard spaces of it bothers you.

Sand gets funky and gunky if you over feed your fish. Are you feeding everyday?


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The tunze magnet is awesome very thin and the ability to install razor blade. Also the way it's designed it's meant to get down to the sand and not disturb it to much and not scratch the glass.
 
Cleaning the glass is pretty standard tank maintenance so not to worry. If your tank is new you'll have a diatom bloom for a while, most likely. Figure out what will work for you, whether it will be a algae scraper magnet, or a long handled scrubber, or the plastic edge of credit card works too.
 
Natural solutions for diatoms and algae are CUC (clean up crew) I got Banded Trochus Snails and they love the diatoms 5 of them cleaned my 36g in about a week. And they can right them selves I always see them cleaning my glass too. I only manually clean the front of my tank. Sides and back I don't care about hoping for coraline coverage at some point of sides and back.

But with a new tank and new sand yes they are normal. New sand comes with new silicates. Diatoms feed on silicates. If you stir up the sand. New sand is at the top allowing more silicates to be leached out causing them to re-apear in that spot. Happened to me as well. I just had to swap out my sand bed because I used the wrong stuff and my diatoms are just starting back up again. Don't stress about them too much though.


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Okay thanks everyone. I had a diatom bloom about a 6 weeks ago and it went away after a week or two. I'll try not to stir up the sand in the future. I have to snails that stay buried in the sand.
 
I also love my flipper. I did get a scratch on my tank while using mine before, but after seeking help, I'm fairly convinced it was either a bit of sand on it, or a vermentid snail or something of the sort. Since then, I don't store my flipper in the tank. I only put it in to clean, then take it out and put in a ziplock bag under the stand.
 
Not to hyjac the thread, but I recently watched a video on how to clean aquarium glass (killing some idol time at work) and the guy used a handheld scraper, and pushed the scraper past the sandbed, down a good inch into the sand to scrape off the stuff between the sand and the glass. I cringed when I saw this! All I could think is the glass getting scratched up. Does anyone else do this? will this scratch the glass, or have I been too particular in not getting within 1/4" of the sand?
 
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