A Dedicated "Sand Pump" or Powerhead to keep sand and substrate clean! Possible?

[KingTideCorals]

I had a baby conch in my last sand bed I didn't know Didn't find him until after i drained the tank 4 days later pushed to the sand to try to live... I felt so bad....

Scooped out all the Nas's. Wasn't looking for a hitchhiker baby

OH NO!

The conch was like "Wait don't take my water"

*Proceeds to pull all water*

Conch "Oh....

 

[Vette67]

Have you ever tried using a gravel vac on your shallow oolitic bed? I ask because I've been using one of the wide mouthed gravel vacs fairly successfully on a very old oolitic bed. I may suck up a few tablespoons of sand with a 5 gallon WC, usually sucking down a 1/2" from the surface.

I have not. I am old school. The conventional wisdom in the late 90’s was to leave the sand bed alone, so I have kept with that. In my display tank, I have not touched the sand bed in at least 8 years. I can’t say the same for my refugium, which did decay over time. But even that sand bed was left alone for close to the same amount of time, and since rip cleaning it in May, I probably won’t touch it for at least another 5 years or more. I think mature tanks can process the detritus for the most part, but even they become saturated after a period of several, several years. I don’t care how many threads there are about rip cleaning for a stalled cycle, my tank is well beyond cycled, so those same rules don’t apply. And you’ll see a lot of mature reefers that don’t siphon their gravel.

So unless I detect an issue, like the gravel blackening from buildup, and notice hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg smell), I don’t intend to clean my gravel. Nature seems to be able to handle that for the most part.

 

[fish farmer]

I have not. I am old school. The conventional wisdom in the late 90’s was to leave the sand bed alone, so I have kept with that. In my display tank, I have not touched the sand bed in at least 8 years. I can’t say the same for my refugium, which did decay over time. But even that sand bed was left alone for close to the same amount of time, and since rip cleaning it in May, I probably won’t touch it for at least another 5 years or more. I think mature tanks can process the detritus for the most part, but even they become saturated after a period of several, several years. I don’t care how many threads there are about rip cleaning for a stalled cycle, my tank is well beyond cycled, so those same rules don’t apply. And you’ll see a lot of mature reefers that don’t siphon their gravel.

So unless I detect an issue, like the gravel blackening from buildup, and notice hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg smell), I don’t intend to clean my gravel. Nature seems to be able to handle that for the most part.

My 20 year old 4" southdown playsand bed is full of detritus. I did the "leave it alone" thing until recently....it's on a fowlr. It was actually cleaner when I had a large damsel stirring the sand around.

 

[Vette67]

My 20 year old 4" southdown playsand bed is full of detritus. I did the "leave it alone" thing until recently....it's on a fowlr. It was actually cleaner when I had a large damsel stirring the sand around.

That’s funny. I remember the threads talking about which home improvement stores had the shipments of Southdown play sand. But I never purchased any for myself. Good times! I bought few bags of the Carib Sea sand. Who knows how long ago that was.

So you are siphoning the Southdown and not having issues? I’ll be honest. I never tried vacuuming it. I just assumed the fine grains would have an issue getting sucked up in the siphon. But I intentionally keep my sand bed in my DT shallow so that I don’t have to clean it. Like I said, at least that’s what I tell myself... But I do keep a deeper sand bed in my fuge, and that did clog up.

 

[Rich Klein]

I just vacuum it once a week while doing a waterchange.

That is what we (my wife helps) do for our weekly water change. We vacuum the detritus from the sand, which for my 165 gal tank amounts to ~ 10 gallons of water. Then I remove another 7 or so. I've been contemplating stopping at the 10 gallons weekly.

 

[Paul B]

Maybe @Paul B will chime in here since he's been tagged. I know it's super old school, but it came to mind, and I really haven't read that much on it.

No my Reverse Undergravel Filter will not blow detritus out of the sand. You can't use it with sand, only with gravel. I personally would not use sand in any tank as I would only run a tank with a Reverse Undergravel filter. Mine is runing for just about 50 years, no problems yet, but I think at about 51 years, you start to have problems.

This is old school stuff from Bob Goemans Live Sand Secrets booklet, 1996.

Bon Goemans is a friend of mine and I remember when he wrote about that. He is kind of the Father of Live sand use.

(1996 is not old school. That is pretty recent. )

 

[fish farmer]

That’s funny. I remember the threads talking about which home improvement stores had the shipments of Southdown play sand. But I never purchased any for myself. Good times! I bought few bags of the Carib Sea sand. Who knows how long ago that was.

So you are siphoning the Southdown and not having issues? I’ll be honest. I never tried vacuuming it. I just assumed the fine grains would have an issue getting sucked up in the siphon. But I intentionally keep my sand bed in my DT shallow so that I don’t have to clean it. Like I said, at least that’s what I tell myself... But I do keep a deeper sand bed in my fuge, and that did clog up.

I'm using a 10" x 2" gravel siphon....I think it is an Aqueon product I got at petco. It siphons pretty fast and I never go much deeper than an inch and never get more than a 1/4 cup of sand in a 10 gallon water change. I try to be really careful and usually just stir the surface.

I think if I could make a longer fat tube for the vac the sand would have more drop time before getting sucked up and maybe valving the hose to slow it down.

 

[Paul B]

Maybe @Paul B will chime in here since he's been tagged. I know it's super old school, but it came to mind, and I really haven't read that much on it.

I have always ran a reverse undergravel filter but it won't keep any detritus suspended. The flow is very slow and it is not designed to suspend anything.
No detritus is visable in my tank due to the gravel.