Do you Siphon (clean) your Sand?

bekindtoyurbuds

New member
Just wanted to see if you clean your sand or not, if you do, how do you clean it, do you use a sand siphon or do you just stir it. How much do you clean at a time and how often?

I used to stir the top layer of my sand every week with water change, but I just recently bought a siphon, so far everyother week I will siphon half of the sand wait two weeks than do the other half.

Just wanted to see what you guys are doing.
 
nope. My sandbed stays quite clean and I have a variety of stuff digging around in it to stir it up. One of them, my 'sand gopher' makes nice clean piles all over the place.
 
I never clean it, or stir it up. I used to, until I relized that it was the source of my phosphate spikes, and my fish getting sick. Since I quit doing that, I never have had an issue with phosphates. The fish got sick because the bacterial load in the water column drastically increases whenever you stir it up. The fish are used to a certain amount of parasites and bacteria that are always present in the water, but when you stir sand, you increase their numbers, and your fish aren't used to it. Also, the sand harbors anoxic bacteria in the lower parts of it. If you stir it up, the bacteria dies.
 
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