sand in overflow! help.

[daitheflu20]

I've got about inches of sand down inbetween the baffles of one of my overflows. Aside from turning the entire tank over and shaking it out, is there a good way to get that out? Thanks.
-Nathan

 

[tsciarini]

do you mean sand in your sump?
I'd try to blast it out with a high flow powerhead or something of the sort... while keeping the normal flow going at the same time.

 

[glxtrix]

you could try to blow it out with a PH. Dont know if thats possible with your setup tho.

 

[glxtrix]

man, why ya gotta post a second befor I do tony????

 

[tsciarini]

actually it was a minute before:tongue2:

 

[glxtrix]

unless it was a few seconds befor the new minute posted

 

[daitheflu20]

Its not in the sump...its inbetween the two plastic sides of the overflow...the chamber that the water flows up before going down to the sump. I was thinking I could get a small hose and cyphen it out but not sure I could find a hose that small.

 

[glxtrix]

airline tubing, or home depot had hoses of all sorts of diameter.

 

[justonemoretank]

How about a long length of rigid airline tubing down in between the walls of the overflow. At the top of the rigid airline you could connect regular airline maybe. Good luck.

 

[stanfill reef]

I had the same problem caused by a goby that loved to drop sand right in front of the opening. I shot water down the hole with a hose when doing water changes. I always pump my new water into the tank using 3/8" vinyl tubing. I just put the tubing in the crack and blasted the sand out the bottom. Worked pretty well.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Leave it! What's it hurting? If you must, just siphon it out with any size tubing. For example, totally hypothetically, If you bump your bulkhead, and it starts to leak, and you cant re-seat it because of the debris, just take some spare vinyl hose, start the siphon, and suck it out. Dont ask me how I know this, or anything about this "hypothetical" situation.:doh:

 

[george]

You could always just agitate it by stuffing an airline tube down there and pumping water or air in until all of it overflows into your overflow. It'd be easier to siphon out then.