Sump Cleaning

[whixley101]

Hello all and Thank You for taking to the time to read and hopefully respond. I am planning on doing a hard cleaning on my sump (125 Gallons) on my SPS tank(225 gallon). Herein lies my question, I absolutely hate have to make this process a 75 gallon water change, essentially. I do this about once every six to eight months and notice my corals get severely stressed while doing this. Some sps browned out for a solid month and another month or so for new growth to appear ,when doing this last year. Are there any DIY methods or "tricks" to make this process a recirculation of the water, through maybe a cannister filter or something like that, instead of water replacement.

All opinions and comments are much appreciated in advance.

Cole

 

[pondman]

Take a power head install a hose run hose to a filter sock and vaccum away return water goes through filter sock back to sump I do it all the time

 

[whixley101]

@pondman, I have tried that is the past, but the problem I had was the detritus would clog the powerhead very quickly.

 

[davocean]

This might sound crazy, but you can actually take a shop vac and suck up stuff off the bottom, it does not touch electronics or anything

 

[TheEngineer]

I agree with pondman. Get a bigger pump if it is getting clogged up or put a screen on the end of the hose to prevent large particles from getting pulled in. I use the filter sock method and it works great.

 

[ReefMadScientist]

Here is what I learned because I too had the same issue.

First off a Shop-Vac is best to remove the gunk and detritus at the bottom. You WILL have to remove all the water from your sump to do it correctly. I have tried numerous times to keep the water clean during this procedure but it never works correctly.

So overall, clean everything and do not recycle or use the water in your sump. Just replace it after you are done cleaning with fresh salt.

 

[Sabellafella]

Take a power head install a hose run hose to a filter sock and vaccum away return water goes through filter sock back to sump I do it all the time

Ha juss tryd that today, usually i just drain my whole sump and try to get as much gunk out as possible , but figured why not take an mj amd vacuum into my filtersock

 

[Jlobes]

shop vac is your best friend!

i just got a small one(6.5 gallon) from costco the other day, just for the tank! well, it might get used elsewhere, but my main thought was for the tank.

 

[maroun.c]

U can siphon the collecting detritus of one partition every week so it becomes a series of smaller water changes over few weeks which shouldn't cause any stress.