How often do you vacuum your Aragonite

[vetteguy53081]

Once per year. I try not to disturb bedding too much

 

[Crustaceon]

Turkey baster and let it flow into a filter sock twice a month. It only takes five minutes and is well worth the effort to effectively export a nitrate and phosphate source. I could go without but that would mean having to remove algae from my scrubber more often, which takes more time and effort.

 

[Chukthunder]

I vacuum out obvious detritus and push into the bed in a checkerboard pattern when siphoning out water, never cleaning the entire bed all at once. I'm paranoid about culling the pod population more than anything else.

 

[MabuyaQ]

Why would I vacuum my sand if my two Holothuria atra do so 24/365. With the right cleanup crewmembers nobody needs to clean the sand.

 

[Crustaceon]

Why would I vacuum my sand if my two Holothuria atra do so 24/365. With the right cleanup crewmembers nobody needs to clean the sand.

I’ve had nassarius snails who played submarine like crazy and a diamond watchman goby (shovelface) who constantly gulped mouthfulls of sand and still had enough detritus to drive nitrate levels to 20ppm in an older tank of mine. It was only when I started gravel vacuuming my sand and pulling the horrifying amount of crud out that my nitrates dropped down and stabilized at 10ppm. The amount of detritus that isn’t removed by sand dwellers is surprising. Choosing the right CC is indeed important.

 

[Vin's Reef]

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.

Yep. Then you lose all yor fish to ick or velvet like me and you wanna sell off all your stufff and pack it in like me

 

[Crustaceon]

Ich theronts swim around the water column looking for hosts whether or not the sandbed is disturbed. Having cloudy water after maintenance could simply be a bacterial bloom from exposing free-floating aerobic bacteria to an otherwise unavailable food source and not necessarily be indicative of the ich population somehow spontaneously increasing. As noted, I use a turkey baster to blast out my sand, which clouds my water to a degree. None of my livestock have ich as a result. On a side note: Undetectable nitrates is bad if you’re keeping coral and there is such thing as a tank that’s “too clean”.

 

[ech0o]

I run a maintenance company and we clean everyone's tanks the same way we keep our own. Gravel vac on the sand EVERY time a water change is done. I won't remove water from a tank unless its coming through the sand in the tank first, otherwise it feels like wasted water removal.

I have started with new clients who are having algae, nitrate and phosphate issues, done a single gravel vac on the sand bed with water change, and watched their nutrients plummet, and algae wither away and die. This is enough proof to me that good husbandry when it comes to removing waste particles is premiere in keeping low nutrients, weather if be in the skimmer, filter floss, or removal of gunk from sandbed!!

 

[MabuyaQ]

I’ve had nassarius snails who played submarine like crazy and a diamond watchman goby (shovelface) who constantly gulped mouthfulls of sand and still had enough detritus to drive nitrate levels to 20ppm in an older tank of mine. It was only when I started gravel vacuuming my sand and pulling the horrifying amount of crud out that my nitrates dropped down and stabilized at 10ppm. The amount of detritus that isn’t removed by sand dwellers is surprising. Choosing the right CC is indeed important.

Not just the right CC but also balanced in numbers against the rest. If you do you won't become part of the CC yourself. Besides two cucumbers I also use Nassarius snails and burrowing animals (wrasses and pair of watchman gobies with a pair of Alpheus shrimps) to keep detritus from setteling in my sandbed and accumilating overtime. All the small stuff like worms and pods are just a bonus, but an important one as they really get into those small corners.

 

[K7BMG]

I had to vote never.
That said I have a bare bottom reef.

 

[Crustaceon]

I run a maintenance company and we clean everyone's tanks the same way we keep our own. Gravel vac on the sand EVERY time a water change is done. I won't remove water from a tank unless its coming through the sand in the tank first, otherwise it feels like wasted water removal.

I have started with new clients who are having algae, nitrate and phosphate issues, done a single gravel vac on the sand bed with water change, and watched their nutrients plummet, and algae wither away and die. This is enough proof to me that good husbandry when it comes to removing waste particles is premiere in keeping low nutrients, weather if be in the skimmer, filter floss, or removal of gunk from sandbed!!

I also worked for an aquarium maintenance company here in San Diego and our process was exactly the same. Exporting nutrient sources lowers overall nutrient levels.

 

[Nimitz87]

I do between 10-15 gallon water changes weekly on my 90 DT. and part of the w/c is vacuuming the sand bed, I've seen no downsides and in fact when I stir up the sand a bit everything has greater PE, I believe this is feeding almost like Marine snow. here is a picture of my tank. I also will periodically when feeding turkey baste the rocks at least 2-3x a week. today's parameters are 1.024 sg, 8.8 dkh, 430 cal, 1350 mag.

 

[sghera64]

Hey how long is the arm on this? My tank is 36" deep, water level at 32" (to prevent overflow if my redundancy overflow(s) fail). It's a b**ch getting my arm down deep without bruising my armpits on the braces - let alone worrying about taking action to prevent antiperspirant leeching in.

About 11”, but you can extend it by shoving it into a piece of PVC.

 

[Hubtech]

I'm a never. 210g tank with 200 lbs of CS Special Grade. To be fair i've got a tiger tail cucumber, baby horseshoe crab, 20 vibex nassarius, 20 std nassarius, gobs of crabs, trochus, conch, etc. . . i got that cleanup crew on point.

 

[BellaCoop]

It was awesome reading through all of these different ways of doing water changes! I tend to vacuum every other water change but i also do not have a lot of fish in my tank. I have always had this debate with a friend though because he messed with his sand to much one time and it made his tank get really bad for a bit.. But he also had his tank for about 3 years before he did anything to the sand.

The only real issue i have ever ran into with my sand bed is when i had to re do my rocks in the tank, i had a LOT of debris under and made my tank look messy for a while, did not really mess with the levels but lots of junk that took my 3 water changes to get out. Should i use a turkey baster under my rocks so that does not happen?

 

[Crustaceon]

It was awesome reading through all of these different ways of doing water changes! I tend to vacuum every other water change but i also do not have a lot of fish in my tank. I have always had this debate with a friend though because he messed with his sand to much one time and it made his tank get really bad for a bit.. But he also had his tank for about 3 years before he did anything to the sand.

The only real issue i have ever ran into with my sand bed is when i had to re do my rocks in the tank, i had a LOT of debris under and made my tank look messy for a while, did not really mess with the levels but lots of junk that took my 3 water changes to get out. Should i use a turkey baster under my rocks so that does not happen?

I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I would just blast what you can reach. It’s better to leave your rocks where they are and not disturb them if you can help it. If it’s not causing increased nitrates and phosphates, it’s not worth removing it.

 

[BellaCoop]

I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I would just blast what you can reach. It’s better to leave your rocks where they are and not disturb them if you can help it. If it’s not causing increased nitrates and phosphates, it’s not worth removing it.

I agree. I had to move it because i switched my Reef tank into a predator and got a new reef set up haha

 

[LVE]

I don't vacuum my sand, I do stir it up every week when doing a water change though.

 

[BellaCoop]

I don't vacuum my sand, I do stir it up every week when doing a water change though.

Does it go the same for a 25 gallon? I just got a smaller tank because iv been wanting to fill a corner with a reef.

 

[Dash]

Yep. Then you lose all yor fish to ick or velvet like me and you wanna sell off all your stufff and pack it in like me

Not sure what your point is and how it’s relevant here? It’s not nice to hear I’ll lose all my fish - knock on wood!

I run a maintenance company and we clean everyone's tanks the same way we keep our own. Gravel vac on the sand EVERY time a water change is done. I won't remove water from a tank unless its coming through the sand in the tank first, otherwise it feels like wasted water removal.

I have started with new clients who are having algae, nitrate and phosphate issues, done a single gravel vac on the sand bed with water change, and watched their nutrients plummet, and algae wither away and die. This is enough proof to me that good husbandry when it comes to removing waste particles is premiere in keeping low nutrients, weather if be in the skimmer, filter floss, or removal of gunk from sandbed!!

This has been my experience as well- just made a huge difference in my tank