Gravel/sand bed cleaners

[ssm05rsx]

Hey guys, How do you clean the bed of your tank? What cleaner do you use, or do you just have invertebrates clean your tank?

We have an older powered gravel vacuum we use but it gets annoying with how much water is lost from doing the cleaning.

I was looking into ordering this, http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3728+15484&pcatid=15484

because the water is then put back into the tank. Looks like its a good deal cause it leaves the good bacteria you need in the tank and works for sand and gravel.

- we have tanks with sand and crushed coral in them as of right now.

 

[magic]

Just buy a used canister filter with a gravel vac. It will do what your looking for and when you need extra filtration you have it. I use a Magnum 350.

Bob

 

[vangvace]

inverts for sand... but I think if I tried CC I would get a gravel vac

 

[jonathan.]

I never really gravel vac my sand. I let my CUC do the job. I've never had a problem with a lot of garbage being left around. I just stir the sand bed on occasion.

 

[ssm05rsx]

Our power gravel vac works ok. Just was looking for a better option for weekly maintenance on the crushed coral since a cleaner crew really cant clean it too well (at least thats what i think.) The link that dan posted seems nice cause you dont remove water from the tank when cleaning detritus. The only time we would remove water would be a bi-weekly water change (maybe 15%.)
Main reason we did CC instead of sand was because i had really bad luck with sand in my old 35 gal tank. My CUC pretty much decided to not clean and just die and i had to clean it myself which was a pain. CC is much easier to clean manually than sand in my opinion but I like the ease of just sticking the gravel vac in and cleaning the CC like it is gravel from a FW tank.
We might switch over to sand in the future cause it looks alot nicer and try our hands at another clean up crew but for now we'll stick with the CC.

Thanks all!
-Ralph

 

[waynes reef]

my tanks been running for 9 months now, havent cleaned the sand yet, once in a while ill get a little bacteria growth but it disapears on its own, i guess the good bacteria takes care of it..should i clean it or leave well enough alone?

 

[vangvace]

For the sand bed I would say no. A good clean-up crew combined with a mature/maturing tank should take care of it. Possibly stirring occasionally as Jonathan mentioned.

For the crushed coral though I'd consider getting the vac because that substrate has been known to trap matter and turn into a nitrate factory.