How often do you vacuum your Aragonite

[Marksreef]

My tank does a lot better when I don’t do it at all then when I do it once a week or once every other week. Yours?

 

[Pola0502ds]

I dont

 

[sghera64]

Following

 

[ca1ore]

Nearly once.

 

[pijao81]

I don't do it.. It's the job of my amblygobius phalaena. And he's good at it.

 

[Krzydmnd]

Never. Some areas are as hard as concrete now.

 

[Marksreef]

Yep, when I don’t do it for months, I can pull large clumps.

 

[nguye829]

I do it once a week. I try to vacuum only the top layer of the sand bed.

 

[Dash]

I vacuum when I do my monthly water change - it’s how I get the water out. The sand bed is about 3/4 - 1” deep. The water is murky at first but by the last few buckets is fairly clear. I used to have nitrate levels of around 40 but this dropped to undetectable after I started vacuuming.

 

[joec]

I just use long turkey baster and stir up the sand bed a bit once every week or two, the gunk goes down the overflow and gets trapped in the polyester batting filled DIY catch all I made, in the sump, and then toss the batting

 

[sghera64]

I use this in my 3-5” sand bed about 2-4 times per year. I only do about 1/4 to 1/3 of the bed per week when I’m at it. Great for finding those “abandoned” snail homes.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I try not to disturb it. When I do a good algae glass cleaning I do loosen a 6" section each time.

 

[drblakjak55]

Nothing in the ocean sits around and collects debris. Turkey baste the sand and blow under rocks once a week with next day turkey baste all the rocks. Goes into mesh socks and rinses out in five minutes. Keeps nitrates 10 to 20 and no algae issues and nobody knocking my substrate sitting corals around. Need to turkey baste Zoa colonies. They collect stuff between the polyps. Turn the power heads up to 100 for half hour a day. That also lifts debris out of the holes.

 

[Lukas75]

I've found that if left alone a sand bed becomes a time bomb. Something, whether a fish, an invert or an oops on my part will eventually disturb it and there goes the nitrates, phosphates and algae issues. When I keep a sand bed I vacuum it once a week with my water change and turkey baste the areas that I can't reach with the vacuum. That having been said I do not have a sand bed in any of my current tanks. It looks better than bare-bottom, but bare-bottom is just so much less of a headache. YMMV.

 

[vetteguy53081]

 

[garbled]

I'm not a fan of disturbing the bed. It depends on the method of sandbed you are running though. I run the "super alive" style, where I want tons and tons of worms and bugs and critters all driving around through it, constantly stirring it up by microscopic motion. Yep, there is some detritus in there, but I notice that as it builds up, my bug population increases, and the problem is generally self healing.

I love seeing a hundred spaghetti worms all stick their tentacles out when I feed the tank, and the great eruption of nassarius snails all emerging from the bed at once.

If you vacuum, it ends up killing alot of stuff. Stuff I specifically want alive. So I try to not disturb them, and they reward me by keeping my sand from clumping.

If you have a particularly large tank (250+) you could run a tiger tail cucumber. If you have larger grain size sand, a conch would work too. (It's fun with 1-2mm grain size to watch them pick up each grain one at a time and clean it, then set it down and grab the next one)

 

[Jay Z]

I just poke my gravel and stir. Every weekend for front of the tank poke, about 2-3 on whole tank gravel poke. I don't want my gravel bed spotless.
I run Black Hawaiian, which requires some different tactics and maintenance, plus my tank is a heavy stocked mixed reef.

 

[GrouperStupor]

I do some during water changes...every 2-3 weeks. I've tried it with and without. I have noticed no difference either way and haven't seen any science saying which way is better.

 

[Pbh-reef]

I wasn’t doing it and started to get hair algae and clumpy sand, so I’ve started to do it every week during my water changes - I think it helps

 

[Booger McMoron]

I used to clean my sand bed every water change. I have found that with the addition of a yellow headed goby, my sand bed is much cleaner and doesn’t require as much effort to clean. I am of the mind set that the ocean is a dynamic place and nothing goes undisturbed.