How do you clean your sand?

[savetheocean]

Do you vacuum your sand? I just started doing it and I am already starting to see results. Ive been warned not to do this though because thats where a ton of beneficial bacteria and organisms live.

Whats your opinion on this? Do you clean your sand any other way?

 

[cvrle1]

This is a really loaded question, with no definitive answer. Some will say dont touch it, some will say vacuum away. Some will be in between where they will do it once a while, while others will do it multiple times in a week/month. There is honestly no right answer, but only what works for you and your tank. Thats all it matters in the end.

 

[don_chuwish]

I do it at every water change. As long as you’re not trying to maintain a deep sand bed it’s fine.

 

[lapin]

hahahahaha Once Brandon429 see this you will get an opinion and some facts.
Personally I vac. Not often, just when my sand sifter gets over whelmed. We are a team.

 

[Iona Skye]

I left mine alone for a long time and it got kind of... gooky? Discolored? Idk. I didn't like it. And I don't like the idea of toxins building up.

Gobies are great for stirring up the sand, but I had a predator tank so I couldn't get one. I was going to experiment with stirring the top of the sand with a stick every other week (but alas, now I have no tank to stir because I am moving.)

Personally I've been leaning away from siphoning, but I also think there is nothing wrong with siphoning especially if your fish are big sloppy messy eaters who leave food bits everywhere [emoji4]

 

[Iona Skye]

This is a really loaded question, with no definitive answer. Some will say dont touch it, some will say vacuum away. Some will be in between where they will do it once a while, while others will do it multiple times in a week/month. There is honestly no right answer, but only what works for you and your tank. Thats all it matters in the end.

That pretty much sums it up!

 

[savetheocean]

I tried it while doing a water change and I was shocked by everything that I pulled out.

 

[sghera64]

I started disrupting my DSB about a month ago. I saw Brandon’s warning about those of us with long-time static DSBs not to mix them up or else. So I just had to do it.

I use an Asian spider dumpling strainer. I dig it in really deep, lift and shake a little. I got a lot of very small “dust” to be suspended; almost like smoke. No smell at all. No sulfur. I did about 1/3 of the bottom. I put a filter sock in my sump and replaced it after a day. I waited a few days and did another 1/3 of the DSB.

For me, no smell, no mortalities, coral all doing just fine. I’ve done the whole process across the entire bottom twice now. I still get the “white smoke”, but my DSB is 15 years old now. The sand looks a lot whiter.

I’m going to keep doing about 1/3 each weekend. I might switch to siphoning into the sump through a filter sock.

 

[PDR]

I started siphoning my 3 year old 1.5-2" sand bed a couple of months ago. I did it religiously every week for 5-6 weeks. By the end of that time, it was really white and "clean" (almost nothing coming out when siphoning). To the best of my knowledge, the only thing I succeeded in doing was getting a temporarily clean looking sandbed, all while destabilizing my tank (lost my urchin and several corals lost color for a few weeks).

I know there is a lot of debate about it, and I'm sure others will disagree, but I'm all for not bothering with it unless you are having some kind of issue. The more I research the more I am coming to the conclusion that all that "nasty gunk" is essentially harmless.

 

[jda]

If you have an established tank, then go slow. This can be a disruption, but not anything that is detrimental if you don't do too much at once.

I do vacuum mine, but like 20-25% at a time every quarter for a year and then I take a year off. If you have sand sifters (snail, cucumbers), then you are removing their food, so make sure that you allow areas to repopulate with microfauna.

You are not just vacuuming detritus (which is mostly benign), but also beneficial microfauna. You are mixing the oxic and anoxic regions, so bacteria will have to die and repopulate in the right places - if you have shallow sand (like less than an inch) then all of it is probably oxic and less to worry about.

The "nasty gunk" is mostly harmless, but too much of it can gum up the works and suffocate places for the microfauna and bacteria to grow and live. I take the approach that I want to get it out, but I am in no hurry and can be methodical and smart about removing it.

 

[cracker]

I got fed up with the algae growing in my sand bed so I siphoned it all out. Now the sand in the 180 gets vacuumed every water change .

 

[ca1ore]

I never vacuum my sand bed, but see no real downside to it ... just seems mostly unnecessary and I’m very much into avoiding unecessary things these days. Plus, my pumps are always moving the sand around and I have 9 burying wrasses that keep it all stirred up.

 

[Nano sapiens]

The question is indeed a loaded one, but IME the smaller the tank, the more often the sand bed should be cleaned. Larger tanks can support creatures that keep the sand bed aerated and keep detritus in suspension for the filter system to capture, but smaller 'nano' reef tanks typically need to rely on aquarist vacuuming/stirring assistance to thrive long term.

 

[SPR1968]

What, you mean I’m supposed to clean it!! Lol

I’ve never cleaned mine, although in the past I’ve had a sand sifting starfish. I have a pair of triggers who throw it up in the water from time to time if that counts as ‘cleaning’!

 

[jd371]

I have that sugar fine sand so it makes it hard to vacuum so instead I stir it a little bit once and a while and let my critters do the rest ( 2 Conch snails, Rainford Goby and Starfish).

 

[RMS18]

I use a siphon, once every two weeks i'll vacuum all the sand during the water change. Keeps the sand white and prevents it from building up detritus and becoming that "bomb" everyone fears.

 

[Ruben's Reef]

I never touch mine. I got my Lawnmower Blenny that keep the sand clean and a few other little critters that do a great job at night.

 

[Js.Aqua.Project]

I leave mine alone, choosing to invest in inverts and fish to keep it clean for me.

 

[PhreeByrd]

I haven't (intentionally, at least) cleaned sand in a DT in 25 years, and all of them have had DSBs of 3"+ with sugar sand. I've never seen any problems when it's gotten stirred up, and it does occasionally get dug up and moved around by critters. I used to be concerned about the possibility of release of sulfides and such -- which always seemed like a disaster waiting to happen -- but I've never seen any ill effects. I have several nassarius snails in a current tank that's been set up for more than 20 years. Seems logical to me that if there were noxious compounds in the sand bed, they would be harmed or killed, but it doesn't appear to bother them a bit.

So no, I don't clean the sand bed. It's another bit of 'maintenance' that I don't need. Whatever is living in the sand bed is doing its job just fine, so I just leave it alone and let it do.

 

[Dsnakes]

As I’m sure you’ve seen from all previous responses, you can go either way on this one. I chose to stir my sand with an acrylic rod about once a week. I have a 125g and it just takes a minute to mix it all around.

This is also the only day I use filter floss. I remove it after everything has settled.

I previously had a 20g that I never stirred. One day my 4 year old decided to do some maintenance and stirred it up. I lost my fish and half my coral by the time I was home from work.