Should I vac sand bed?

[David]

Good day all. I know people differ In opinions about this. I currently do water changes from my sump and leave my sand bed alone. I’m trying to figure out weather if not to start vacuuming the sand, or leave it alone for my CUC to take care of.

 

[Trio91]

I don't do it, but i plan to in my next build

 

[David]

Yea. I didn’t either on my last tank, but I just started this tank. I’m leaning towards doing it on my futures water changes.

 

[MadReefer]

I always vacuum the sand. The dirt trapped in there is unbelievable and I hardly feed. Not to mention can help with unknown parasites from what I have read.
Ich will dropped off fish and stay in the sand bed waiting for a host. This will help eliminate some of them supposedly.

 

[David]

Yea. When I took down my old tank, there was an unbelievable amount of dirt in there.

 

[diana a]

I have 10% bottom surface with sand. Going back to barebottom. I have no fish since the Tide Pod detergent incident. Tank has corals, cerith, turbo and margarite snails. I use to blame my fish for the poo. I started paying attention after there were no fish, and the snails poo so much! I was shocked to see the width and length of the poo that the margarite puts out. So yes I vacuum with or with a sand bed

 

[MadReefer]

Good point Diana. My 10g only has frags and snails and the bottom is disgusting. Cannot wait to take it down.

 

[horseplay]

No vacuuming when I had a sand bed. Fish poop is good for the corals. Plus too much work.

 

[erics210]

I have the 210, and I typically siphon the sand weekly when I do my water change. It is a bigger pain in the rear to do, because I do have corals, live rock islands on the sand, so involves relocating those items back and forth while I vacuum. "IF" I skip the sand vacuuming for a month plus...I will only do one said, and catch up with the other the following water change. From what I have read, you can get gas pockets trapped under the sand and could kill the fish when released if too much at one time.

Is this a fact? Not sure, but easy enough to avoid I guess.


On a side note, I removed my sand from my Red Sea Max 250, and while I may have less detritus caught in the sand, I think I am going back to the sand.
I feel it is easier to filter the sand, than scrape the bottom of buildup.

 

[David]

I need sand for the gobies that I keep, so not going bare. I think I’ll vacuum a little here and there when I do water changes. I’ll try not to stir it up too much at once.

 

[mnat]

How deep and how old is your sand bed and what do you want to accomplish with vacuuming?

 

[David]

I my sand bed is 1.5” on average. My goal would be to reduce the long term accumulation of waist in the sand bed. My sand bed is a little over a month old.

 

[mnat]

At that depth and age yes you can vacuum your sand bed. Just be careful, don't do the whole thing at once, and do it right before you do a water change. Given the age you should be ok, but it is always good to be slow and cautious with it.

 

[David]

Yea that’s what I figured.

 

[Mrx7899x]

Never vacuum mine

 

[diana a]

Never vacuum mine

No poo accumulation?

 

[JRWOHLER]

I have about 4-5 inch sand bed and I do small typhoons ever now and then on parts at a time to stir it up during water changes.

 

[David]

I don’t figure it will hurt anything. I have a few spots of cyano in the low flow spots( normal stuff for new tank) that I need to vacuum out of the sand anyway.

 

[Mrx7899x]

No I run pretty high flow so it doesn't really accumulate on the bottom and I have a pistol shrimp that stirs the sandbed up.

No poo accumulation?

 

[David]

I have a pistol shrimp too. It works the left side of my tank. The little bit of cyano is on the right side share the shrimp doesn’t go.