Do you vacuum your sand bed?

[pmrossetti]

How often? Most I've seen are pretty dirty despite clean up crews. And clean up crews poop too you know. Thanks :)

[Flipper62]

I only vac the sand every few water changes. However, I just lightly vac the top surface. You dont want to disturbed the sand bed too much.

[pmrossetti]

Thanks Flipper62, I hope I'm not out of line but why not?

[ludnix]

I don't because that's just too much work for me. I have 3 engineer gobys who do an amazing job stirring it up for me.

[sedor]

When i'm doing my weekly WC I just take my turkey baster and kind of stir it up a bit, nothing crazy just a little once over to freshen everything up. Don't do this if you have a DSB, but if your 3" or under your fine.

[pmrossetti]

Thanks all, the books I've been reading say 1/4" or 5" or more. Otherwise larger grain size with regular vacuuming is better. For hydrogen sulfide prevention. What do you think? Sorry for the involved question.

[jayk198030]

i clean the sand bed every time i do a water change. i replace it once a year with fresh sand.

[BuddhaKiss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15588931#post15588931 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jayk198030
i clean the sand bed every time i do a water change. i replace it once a year with fresh sand.

Do you get a minor diatom bloom everytime you do this?

[sanababit]

i just move the surface of my sandbed to make it look good, i do this once every week

sana

[pmrossetti]

Hello all reefcentral folks. Tomorrow I'm going to ask the question no one wants to deal with regarding sand beds. I hope it will be taken with the best intentions it's meant with. It seems everyone avoids the question or rationalizes the answers. But I'm going for it anyway. It's regarding sand beds. Please be honest when answering and I love you all. :)

[Ritten]

I vacuum my 1-1/2" sandbed every week when I do a water change. I add a little sand about every six months.

[falconut]

My sand bed is a mixture of fine grain beach sand to large grain argonite (spelling?). It's between 1" - 2" thick. I will vacuum it anywhere from every two weeks to once a month. I usually do about half the sand bed at a time. It gets really nasty down there. The water is a dark tan color and smells. The more often I do it, the less nasty it is. So if I didn't, I can only imagine how bad it would be.

My tank has been running for about 4-1/2 years now. I didn't vacuum it ever for the 1st year. And the first time I did, wow. So, I've tried to keep up with it. HTH

[pIankton]

Yeah, I do mine but it's the Special Reef Grade sand and it varies in depth from anywhere from bare bottom in certain areas to about an inch - inch and a half. Nasty nasty stuff in there.

[jayk198030]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15589120#post15589120 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BuddhaKiss
Do you get a minor diatom bloom everytime you do this?

not really.. i may do a 15g water change every 10 days or so on my120g with 55g sump. i may get about a cup or two of sand every cleaning. i live in jersey so i get sand from the beach here and some from Florida when i visit there.

[mg426]

I vaccum my shallow sand bed (less than 1 inch) with every water change. I have not observed anything abnormal or harmfull.

[Playa-1]

I used to vacuum the sand bed light every now and then but then I got one of these and never had to mess with it again.


http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/158898SandBed2.jpg

[pmrossetti]

Sorry no post today. Not feeling well. Will post new thread on this tomorrow, if feeling better. I feel it's very important to all reefers. Look for new thread on this from me, OK?

[nattarbox]

I have never seen pre-launch hype for a thread about sand beds.

[luther1200]

I always have and always will gravel vac my SSB. I would not do it with a DSB, but I don't think I will ever run a DSB. I do it weekly with my WC's. You get so much detritus out and its so easy to do I see no reason not to, IMO. And I do have a Goby also but he just stirs it up he doesn't remove it from the tank. I'm sure some of it gets removed Via skimming and Mechanical filtration if you have any, but gravel vac is the way to go IMO. I just figure the siphon isn't going to go any faster if I don't do it so why not.

[DT's_Reef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15595155#post15595155 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Playa-1
I used to vacuum the sand bed light every now and then but then I got one of these and never had to mess with it again.


http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/158898SandBed2.jpg

Do you have an open-top tank?