cleaning sandbed..

[mshrmhd]

I would really like to clean my sandbed, but I would prefer to not re-cycle my tank, unless I really should... the problem is whenever I move a couple rocks and it disturbs the sand, it looks like a sandstorm in the tank...

is it safe for me to throw the rock in a different tank for a couple hours or so and vacuum the sandbed really well?

if it is ok, what's the max size water change that I can do? I have about 100 gallons of ro water at my dispsal at the time and it is a 75 gallon tank

the current occupants of the 75 are a yellow tang, clarkii clown, long spine urchin, coral banded and pistol shrimp.. along with a couple generic looking polyps, a couple leathers, and some GSP.. and some snails and crabs..

I can move all the living stuff to my 34g solana ( it curently houses a large maroon clown and 5 small anemones... and a few mushrooms and some other misc small corals...

only thng im worried about there is the clarkii and maroon...

any help is much appreciated... thank you

 

[Burgman]

Hi,

I would leave the rock in the tank and siphon about 1/4 of the exposed area at a time. I have done this once in a while and it did not affect any of my corals or fish. I doubt you will cause any problems if you do a little at a time. Removing all your rock from the tank will stir up all kinds of sediment.

Dave

 

[serpentman]

Couple of things. How deep is your sand bed? If its relatively shallow, you can "vacuum" the upper layer without much issue. If its deep, I have found it best to vacuum a little at a time to prevent disturbing anoxic pockets. Personally, I prefer to manually stir the top 1" of sand once a week and letting the filter socks and skimmer remove any detritus that's kicked up. The tank usually clears up in a couple of hours.

No matter what you do, sandstorms will likely continue when you disturb it. They should settle down though relatively quickly.

As far as livestock goes, I wouldn't worry about the fish. And yes, you should be able to move liverock from tank to tank provided the temp and salinity are close to your display.

 

[mshrmhd]

thanks for the replies... my sandbed is pretty shallow.. maybe about 2 inches...

the reason I want to move the rock out and do it is to get the sand a lot better and so I can arrange the rock nicely.. its pretty much just thrown in there and looks awful.. but when I try to arrange it, its almost impossible to see in..

curently, there is no skimmer on the 75.. (actually the only filtration for the tank is live rock... and occasionally turning on the canister filter..)

I'm still trying to learn on what skimmer to get, I know the best I can afford is the general answer, but I don't know which models/types to stay clear of..

 

[Gary Briggs]

You can also think of this as a never ending battle...
Another option would be to get inverts to consume the detritus, like a sand sifting star (astropecta polycanthus) or a caribbean cucumber (but not both in your size tank, they eat a lot).
Cerith snails (mexican) usu are on rocks but also go into the sand.
If you want to clean the sand, go slow, stirring it up puts lots of stuff in the water (esp bacteria) that can cause problems.