cleaning question

[comfort_racing]

when i siphon out water for my water changes, should i be siphoning the sand bed? i didnt know if this was a good or bad practice?

 

[cdangel0]

I would not siphon the sand-bed. Too much risk in stirring up some nasty stuff that will cause all kinds of problems with your water chemistry.

 

[Gdevine]

If you ask many here on this board or the folks at Wet Web Media they will tell you to siphon your sand bed but only the upper surface and only clean one third of the entire sand bed each week.

You need to do this to get up a lot of waste product that settles to the bottom of the tank.

DO NOT siphon the depth of the sand bed as this will disturb different bacteria levels in the sand bed that your tank needs.

 

[comfort_racing]

that makes sense. the reason i had been doing it is because there is some gross stuff settling on the bottom. i wonder if i keep having on/off diatom blooms because i keep siphoning the entire sand bed once a week?

 

[marduc]

as opposed to siphoning the sand bed.. blast it well with a turkey baster to suspend some of the particulate matter, then siphon it out from the water column.

I do occasionally siphon towards the bottom of the tank.. if you have a decent siphon going you can hold the hose 1/2" or so from the bottom and pull the lighter detrital deposits without sucking up much sand.

 

[Gdevine]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10170513#post10170513 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by marduc
as opposed to siphoning the sand bed.. blast it well with a turkey baster to suspend some of the particulate matter, then siphon it out from the water column.

I do occasionally siphon towards the bottom of the tank.. if you have a decent siphon going you can hold the hose 1/2" or so from the bottom and pull the lighter detrital deposits without sucking up much sand.

Bump!

 

[comfort_racing]

sound good to me! thanks for the good advice guys n' gals.