sand bed?

[heathlindner25]

When I started my reef I was told to vacuum my bed so I have been,my tank is now 5 mnths old and ive read not to ,whats up

[sponger0]

Dont. Read the stickies. Stirring up up can cause all kinds of nasty stuff released into your tank

[a.browning]

It depends a lot on what type of sand bed you are trying to implement. If you are going with a deep sand bed, then a lot of people do not vaccum more than an inch down or so to not disturb toxic gases or the bacterial population in the anoxic zone of the bed. If you have a shallow sand bed, then vaccuming is definately encouraged to keep debris and detritus to a minimum. Personally, I have a 4" sand bed (not sure if that's really a DSB or not) that I now vaccum. Deep sand beds, as I found out after about 2 years, become a huge nutrient sink. They will leech N and P after a while due to all the trapped detritus.

On my next tank I will do a shallow sand bed, wouldn't do a DSB again. Either way, they should be vaccumed in my opinion. I'd keep vaccuming like you have been!

[stingythingy45]

I've had a tank set up for over 4 years now and never vacuumed the sand bed.
And all is fine.
Just need a few nassarius snails to work through it.

[sponger0]

just need a few nassarius snails to work through it.

+1

[Ron Reefman]

I've had a tank set up for over 4 years now and never vacuumed the sand bed.
And all is fine.
Just need a few nassarius snails to work through it.

+2 :thumbsup:

Why do it yourself if you can get good critters to do the work for you? And my LR sits up on eggcrate above the sand so I couldn't vacum it if I wanted to. But I have a 2' x 6' sand bed for all the critter to play in with almost no rocks in the way.

[Joel_155]

I was curious about this also. I have a shallow sand bed and was unsure weather to vacuum it or not.

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[andrewey]

It all depends on how deep your sandbed is. If its 4" or more, do not vaccum. If its pretty thin and usually coarse grains, feel free to vacuum.