Do you siphon your sand bed?

Bpfor3 · Jul 26, 2020

I have a mixed reef with a sand bed. Probably 1”-1.5” throughout. I have never siphoned it and wonder if I should. I have 2 Tiger Conchs that do a good job keeping it algae free.

wondering what people do or experience they have?

4tanks · Jul 26, 2020

I do with my weekly water change only enough to disturb the top layer I don't go digging deep or anything

jcolliii · Jul 26, 2020

Yep, siphoned it right out and went bare bottom with black starboard.

Lol. But before that, to keep things clean, I built a small sand vacuum from a MJ-900, a length of PVC, a couple push fittings, and a small valve to control flow. I vacuumed my sand once a week, and I stirred up the areas that I couldn't reach with the vacuum. The vac was nice because I shoved a wad of filter floss into the intake tube and the clean water is discharged right back into the tank, so no sand grunge would make it back into the water. I think the details are in my build thread in the AIO forum if anyone is interested in building one. Worked very well.

NashobaTek · Jul 26, 2020

I don't siphon, I stir top layer up and siphon from the mid water collum. I don't want to siphon pods out, the mandrins need them.

NashobaTek · Jul 26, 2020

jcolliii said:
The vac was nice because I shoved a wad of filter floss into the intake tube and the clean water is discharged right back into the tank, so no sand grunge would make it back into the water

Great idea! I was just using a nylon sock, didn't even think about filter floss! Thanks!

vetteguy53081 · Jul 26, 2020

yes and very lightly as not to stir anything up but collect some detrious

jda · Jul 26, 2020

I leave mine alone and let the cukes and conchs work. However, starting in about the 4th year, I do vacuum very small parts of it down to the bottom to remove all of the benign junk - I take the whole year to get to all of it so that the vacuumed section has a chance to repopulate with microfauna and bacteria.