Sand bed maintance
- Thread starter BitFix
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Never that! your going to bring up all the nitrites, and nitrates. You will have to fight your water quality for a week. Curious @Ramasule: who told you that! If you want to clean your sand bed use a vacuum. 2" kinda more than I would recommend in a 25gal but it's ok. Don't mess with that sand bed. Get a sand star, or two. Don't touch that sand bed.
What do you think vacuuming does. That's why you stir to rid the sand of nutrients, then when the water is cloudy drain it.
But like all forums youll always get 2 end of the spectrum, Ram vs Clipper vs (Never stir or vacuum) vs (2 inch not enough you need 8 DSB baby)
But like all forums youll always get 2 end of the spectrum, Ram vs Clipper vs (Never stir or vacuum) vs (2 inch not enough you need 8 DSB baby)
It depends on how old the tank/sand bed is, if it's a brand new tank I wouldn't be too worried about turning it over, but if it's an established tank I would be. You could go two routes, one get more sand bed creatures or clean it in small sections broken up over time. I'm more of a cautious person so I would do a small section right before a water change and then see how the tank(nutrient levels) reacts. If your nitrates/nitrites/phosphates don't go crazy I would just continue to do a small section every week or two right before a water change till you're happy with it. IMO don't do it in one shot, play it safe and see how the tank reacts to doing a small section.
._Z_.
Active Member
Many people do this with no problems. The problems arise if you only do it once every few months, or you have a very deep sand bed. If it’s frequently stirred then it’s a good method.
jtl
Well-Known Member
I either vacuum or stir every week with a water change and I have been for many years. I don't like the look of green algae between the sand and the glass. I have a minimal amount of sand, only about 1" so it cleans up without any issues.
When I clean my same bed I don't out the siphon to the bottom I just ghost around the top of I go into the same it's only about an 1/8". I have 225gal and h2o remains perfect. 2 each his own I guess. I've been doing this 20 plus years and never stir the sand...
EmdeReef
2500 Club Member
Get some bristle worms and nassarius snails and just leave the sand be. Sooner or later you’ll skip/ stop maintaining sand and moreover can’t reach under rocks where there is risk of anoxic areas or hydrogen sulfide buildup. Nitrates or nitrites won’t cause issues unless at extremely high concentrations.
Stirring regularly (weekly or more often) works to some extent, stirring occasionally is pointless.
Stirring regularly (weekly or more often) works to some extent, stirring occasionally is pointless.
I have regions of my shallow sand bed I haven’t touched in over 8 years. If I do touch it it does have a pretty good buildup of waste (black in color, tends to stick together a bit).
I’m in favor of occasionally doing some gravel vaccing to keep waste under control, but not aggressive. Some extra food and waste is all part of a more functional ecosystem.
Unless you have a very large tank most sand sifting inverts end up starving in tanks and aren’t a good idea (outside of nassarius snails). A diamond goby will likely turn over all of your sand but does need a large tank if it’s also not eating frozen food.
I’m in favor of occasionally doing some gravel vaccing to keep waste under control, but not aggressive. Some extra food and waste is all part of a more functional ecosystem.
Unless you have a very large tank most sand sifting inverts end up starving in tanks and aren’t a good idea (outside of nassarius snails). A diamond goby will likely turn over all of your sand but does need a large tank if it’s also not eating frozen food.
I stir my sand bed at least once a week during water changes. Haven't noticed any adverse effects to water quality. It's a one inch deep sand bed. I also use a tool to agitate the bed throughout the week. It's a long handled plastic paddle that I flatten out and sift through the sand with.
kanders87
Sarcasm Extraordinaire
I stir my sand every 2-3 days in my 20 gallon. If you start doing this from the beginning, you won’t be releasing any nitrates. It’s when you let it sit for months on end and then decide to disturb it that you run into issues. In a smaller tank, I would just stir to prevent future problems. @brandon429 has a good thread about sandbed rinsing and maintenance. Definitely worth a read.
My personal take on sandbed hands on hands off is the tank has to be seen as a bell curve, with larger tanks having a longer arc to detritus demise 
On the upswing side, everybody's method works. Given a clean sandbed, and some form of pore cleaning by force occasionally for live rock (storm simulation to dislodge organics, make them part of the pelagic vs benthic food web) the downward zone straightens out into infinity. I have a thirteen year old one gallon pico which models aging / accumulation / coral export balances impacted by much faster than any aquarium given it's stocking densities. It's an old tank syndrome test, live time.
By reducing gallonage and active surface area per unit of volume we can model reef tank aging sped up like a digital fast forward, so I'm not having to wait until I'm 80 to reflect on findings. The findings are: detritus is the locus of old tank syndrome, it is the age limiter for a reef tank. All bacterial systems will manage themselves permanently if we will just backflush our systems in some way, incrementally or in full as required by conditions which vary tank to tank. focus on keeping interesting micro animals alive and fed on live rock, so you can actually see them, expect your sandbed to be a slow fill diaper.
It's cool to experiment with different sandbed approaches but some readers just want something that works so their cash isn't part of some experiment. If you want bulletproof reefing, keep the sandbed cleaner than you thought you could. Make no excuse for access to flush out organic stores, and hand kill targets as needed on rocks, and your reef will have no biological lifespan limit and it will never require you to dose any retail product or bacterial help (balancer) and even better, your reef will never be part of a rework or invasion assist thread.
what method of sandbed keeping did all the tanks in the sand rinse thread start out with
On the upswing side, everybody's method works. Given a clean sandbed, and some form of pore cleaning by force occasionally for live rock (storm simulation to dislodge organics, make them part of the pelagic vs benthic food web) the downward zone straightens out into infinity. I have a thirteen year old one gallon pico which models aging / accumulation / coral export balances impacted by much faster than any aquarium given it's stocking densities. It's an old tank syndrome test, live time.
By reducing gallonage and active surface area per unit of volume we can model reef tank aging sped up like a digital fast forward, so I'm not having to wait until I'm 80 to reflect on findings. The findings are: detritus is the locus of old tank syndrome, it is the age limiter for a reef tank. All bacterial systems will manage themselves permanently if we will just backflush our systems in some way, incrementally or in full as required by conditions which vary tank to tank. focus on keeping interesting micro animals alive and fed on live rock, so you can actually see them, expect your sandbed to be a slow fill diaper.
It's cool to experiment with different sandbed approaches but some readers just want something that works so their cash isn't part of some experiment. If you want bulletproof reefing, keep the sandbed cleaner than you thought you could. Make no excuse for access to flush out organic stores, and hand kill targets as needed on rocks, and your reef will have no biological lifespan limit and it will never require you to dose any retail product or bacterial help (balancer) and even better, your reef will never be part of a rework or invasion assist thread.
what method of sandbed keeping did all the tanks in the sand rinse thread start out with
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Pod-caster
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Get an Engineer Goby and this problem goes away.
Pod-caster
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Get an Engineer Goby and this problem goes away.
PhreeByrd
Active Member
I haven't intentionally bothered my 3" deep aragonite sugar sand bed in 25 years. I haven't really avoided messing with it, either. I have a big maroon clownfish who likes to move all of the sand from one corner to another, a few nassarius snails, and lots of amphipods. I see no reason to ever clean it. If you don't need to rely on it for your nitrogen cycle, then I don't see any reason to avoid cleaning it, either, if you want all that extra work for no apparent benefit.
Leaving it alone allows the sand bed to develop into a natural bacterial chemical processing engine and will include in the lower regions hypoxic and even anoxic areas, which have been reported to perform some special biological functions of which I've long since forgotten the significance. The sand bed, when left alone, also aids in reduction of iron and sulfates. When you bother the sandbed, all of these processes are disrupted. Of course, they will begin to reestablish as soon as you stop disturbing things, but that doesn't happen quickly. So yes, like van7271 said, you need to decide to either just leave it completely alone, or bother it regularly, thoroughly, and often. I've never had spikes of anything when portions of the sand bed have been disturbed, but I would never stir up the whole thing unless I was about to do a 100% water change, either... after which I would anticipate seeing the return of some uglies in the tank that have not been present in many years. FWIW, I've had the same fish and SPS and LPS corals in this tank for many years. Additions have been fairly few, and the corals still grow like weeds.
Maybe this article will be of some help:
https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2014/5/chemistry
Leaving it alone allows the sand bed to develop into a natural bacterial chemical processing engine and will include in the lower regions hypoxic and even anoxic areas, which have been reported to perform some special biological functions of which I've long since forgotten the significance. The sand bed, when left alone, also aids in reduction of iron and sulfates. When you bother the sandbed, all of these processes are disrupted. Of course, they will begin to reestablish as soon as you stop disturbing things, but that doesn't happen quickly. So yes, like van7271 said, you need to decide to either just leave it completely alone, or bother it regularly, thoroughly, and often. I've never had spikes of anything when portions of the sand bed have been disturbed, but I would never stir up the whole thing unless I was about to do a 100% water change, either... after which I would anticipate seeing the return of some uglies in the tank that have not been present in many years. FWIW, I've had the same fish and SPS and LPS corals in this tank for many years. Additions have been fairly few, and the corals still grow like weeds.
Maybe this article will be of some help:
https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2014/5/chemistry
