Water change.

[Letmeusemyemail]

I mentioned in a previous post I am getting back into the hobby. I was reading posts regarding how long it takes everyone to do water changes. When I had my bio cube, it would take me about 1/2 hr to 45 min, because I would siphon the sand as I was draining the water. Is this still a common practice? I am looking to do a deep sand bed and eventually have sand sifting gobies and starfish in a Red Sea 350.

 

[BaysEndReef]

I siphon my sand when I do a weekly water change. It usually takes me no more than 10 minutes from start to finish. My sandbed is 3 inches thick. Roughly 10% water change.

 

[Macbalacano]

I mentioned in a previous post I am getting back into the hobby. I was reading posts regarding how long it takes everyone to do water changes. When I had my bio cube, it would take me about 1/2 hr to 45 min, because I would siphon the sand as I was draining the water. Is this still a common practice? I am looking to do a deep sand bed and eventually have sand sifting gobies and starfish in a Red Sea 350.

I think it’s a bit mixed. Some people don’t ever do it, some do it all the time, some do just small portions at a time.

I personally don’t, but that’s because I have a conch and nassarius snails that sift the sand and it’s quite clean looking already.

i think if you have a sandsifting goby, he’ll be doing all the work for you! I really wanted one too, but I’ve got a lot of corals on my sand bed and I’ve read a lot of people have issues with them dumping sand on corals all the time.

 

[Kershaw]

I also believe it has to do with what you determine as “deep” I normally run 2-3 inch for fish and inverts that like or need it. I only siphon the spots with algae. I consider deep closer to 6 inch.

 

[Gtinnel]

I would siphon mine when I had algea problems in the tank but I haven't siphoned it in around 4 months the or so. I've finally reached a point where my tank is basically free of algea so I leave the sand bed alone

 

[Nigel35]

You really only need to siphon your sand bed if there is algae/detritus etc. or excessive amounts of junk. Often the things in your sand bed that are beneficial to your tank. For example my nassurius and conches enjoy a deep sand bed rich in nutrients.

 

[Jonify]

If you have a shallow sand bed with a good clean up crew (such as nassarius snails) you don't really need to vacuum the bed. If that doesn't sit well with you, you could perhaps vacuum one small section each water change. My manual water changes take about 15 minutes, start to finish.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

It’s probably a good idea to decide what your goals are for the tank. How much maintenance and equipment you are willing to use and design the tank around that. You can engineer out a lot of problems if you have a goal in mind. You can have a successful tank doing no water changes or full water changes every day. Just have to make sure everything is setup right to support that goal.