Vacuuming your sandbed

[Trio91]

This may be a silly question but when doing water changes, do you guys normally vacuum your sand-bed? This is something that I have never done and was wondering is this is considered a part of "best practices" when maintaining your tank. For those that saw, I do have a pest algae issue in my big tank but it's only on 1 rock and nothing else. I just started to run a fuge so lets see how that goes, it's been only about a month now and I was running gfo but have since stopped as it is pricey. Off hand I do not know what my parameters are but will test when I get home. I only have 2 fish in that tank (72gal) and I know i do not over feed. Which is leading me towards the sandbed

 

[kschweer]

I would say if you have never vacuumed the sandbed I wouldn't start. It may do more harm than good at this point especially if the sand is deep (2"+).

 

[Trio91]

It's not that deep, I'd say maybe 1-1.5" at most

 

[falconut]

Mind is like yours, around 1-2" deep. It's been setup over 11 years and I've been vacuuming it every so often. I'll go a few months to a year between vacuuming it. I don't usually disturb it all at one time. When mine looks dingy is when I disturb it.

If you're going to vacuum yours, I'd recommend starting slowly. Do a small patch and watch to make sure nothing bad happens.

Also, if you believe it's leaching, could be from the rocks too. Many years ago, I had this problem and had to run a lot of GFO, I think I changed it every 3 - 5 days for a month to get my algae under control. Good luck.

 

[Trio91]

I was thinking about removing that rock and placing it in my "curing" bin, do you think its a good idea? I tested my tank and the nitrates/phosphates were reading 0, but im using the API test kits for that so I am sure there is some room for error

 

[Mark_C]

Used to vacuum sections of my 60 all the time. When I set up my 90 I purposely did a shallow 1-2" bed so I could clean it easily. My current rockwork doesn't allow easy access of a vacuum so I just stir (or turkey baste) the heck out of the bed occasionally and let the skimmer do the work. Cleans nicely and the softies love it as well.

 

[bairdimusprime]

i haven't touched my sand bed in 3 years, granted i have a pistol shrimp who'c constantly reworking the sand bed...

 

[redfishbluefish]

I very lightly vacuum all the time.

 

[JRWOHLER]

I have a deep sand bed 4+ inches of fine sand so I cannot vacuum unless I want to suck the sand up. But I do turkey baste sections of the tank regularly and the corals love it.

 

[blange3]

1" to 2" and I vacuum.

 

[downbeach]

I also had a DSB, and didn't touch it. I would suggest you get a better resolution test kit, i.e. Salifert, and test your nutrients before you start to do any vacuuming. Once you have the new kits, test those param's to develop a base line, and then vacuum a small section of the tank, testing after the vacuuming to see if there was any change*, wait a few days, do another section and test again. Once you have done the whole tank, I would vacuum small section with each WC, as part of a regular maintenance schedule.
*If you do see a change, I would wait until your numbers are back to near your baseline before doing another section, allowing your biological filtration to catch up.

 

[lefkonj]

Never touch the sand in my tank, but it gets disturbed often enough by snails and the fish. Overall less than an inch though.