How do you clean your sump/fuge?

[uall8up]

OK, this is kind of a long story to hang with me.....I had super bad algae when I first put my tank up and I have since got it under control. I have crushed soral and random shells for the crabs in my sandbed. Well, ever since the algae everything on the top layer of my tank bed turned green and I HATE IT!! I got a bright idea last night to take off the top layer. How many of us start out just doing something small and it turns into a 2 day project? So, removing the top layer just showed me how NASTY my sand bed is. I ended up removing all the crushed coral, rock, fish, coral, any inverts I could find and about 50% of my water. I scrubbed the tank and filled the tank back up. I got up this morning to find my fuge/sump is awfully nasty. Cleaned the skimmer, fuge, and it still looks gross. I figure it will take a couple of days for everything to settle and be ready for me to put everything back!! I saw things while cleaning my sandbed that I will have nightmares about for a long time!!! lol

 

[Downbeach]

I have an old MJ1200 that I add to a 6' piece of tubing, that I use like a vacuum. I know people who use a wet/dry vacuum too, I haven't tried that process yet because I'm a little too afraid of leaking because of where my tank is located.

 

[solitude127]

I use a shop vac on my fuge and sump

 

[Aquaph8]

Homedepot has a vet/dry vac called a bucket head that fits on top of a five gallon bucket. They're like $20 and are great for sucking stuff out of the sump.

 

[Connie]

A water change is done on my tank every two weeks and the deep sand bed is vaccumed with a normal aquarium vaccum. About once every other month I use the same vaccum to suck up the sludge in the sump instead of the DT. I have my favorite tool for getting algae off the sides of the sump as well - Pampered Chef makes a brown scraper the is about half the size of a deck of cards that is supposed to be used on their stoneware. It is a perfect small square size with 3 rounded edges and 1 sharp edge so you can get every little corner. It gets the algae off without scraping the acrylic. It only costs $2.00 too! I'm sure you could use a plastic putty knife too.

 

[beaslbob]

On my old 55g which ran for 8 years I never cleaned the sump/refugium or the display sand for that matter either.

 

[jerl77]

shopvac when i do i water change

 

[GratefulReef]

only had to clean my sump once, and that was only because i was moving and it was easy to take apart and clean. other than that it isnt really that bad, i think yours got bad because of everything that was stirred up while algae scrubbing.

 

[3Twinklets]

I have not had to do that yet with this tank but I use my Hoover steam mate rug shampooer to vacuum my sump if needed. I do not vacuum my sand bed. I am a believer that there is a lot of good bacteria that I do not want to get rid of in my sand bed.

 

[CRW Reefer]

I have a buddy who uses canister filter filled with only filter floss and then just vacs out the detritus and then it pumps the water back in.

 

[ritter6788]

Mine is bare bottom so I just siphon the detritus when I do a water change.