do you vacuum your sandbed?
- Thread starter scarpenter
- Start date
MondoBongo
Obligate Feeder Obsessed
I siphon as needed. Usually once every other water change, roughly twice a month or so. In the summer more often because I seem to get more cyano then.
IMO/IME part of having a healthy reef tank is also having a healthy sand-bed. The latter requires populations of sand-dwelling fauna that will eat any leftover food and detritus (or most of it, at least). I fully agree that snails, worms, and micro-stars are a welcome addition, but I'd personally not add a sand sifting star. Most home aquaria are far too small to support even a single individual over the long-term. The star will quickly deplete the benthic fauna (a bad thing) and then starve (also as bad thing).
The reason I do not vacuum my sand bed is that very little detritus accumulates anyhow, given the high flow in the tank; and what does accumulate is home for countless small bristleworms, feather worms, and pods. I do employ as settling chamber in my sump, but even that isn't vacuumed very often because the detritus there also generates a ton of pods. My own personal approach is to monitor nitrate levels, not so much from the perspective of absolute levels, but as a proxy for changing nutrient conditions. If nitrates start to climb in the medium-term, I know it is time to do a more substantial 'cleaning'.
