I haven't insulted you. I said anyone that doesn't know the difference between maintaining a DSB & a plenum is clueless. It's frustrating to try to help people set this up correctly, when some people that have NO experience, think they have all the anwsers.
Again, have you ever run a plenum successfully?
The link I provided above for Goemans book specifically says on page 24 to vacum up any detritus accumulation once a month & to vacum the whole bed every 2-3 months. He says not to go deeper than an inch.
Also, if one is meant to vacum the bed, why is a screen included in the design that prevents digging by burrowing animals?
The upper screen is for gobies or other burrowing fish that might go deeper than 2 inches into the bed. If you don't have any of these kind of fish you don't need that upper screen layer. I never used it.
The lower screen layer is for separating the void from the substrate.
Goemans popularized this method (which he got from Jaubert in Monaco) over ten years ago which he developed & tested for years. If you want to do it the correct way you follow his methods. I did this & it worked great for me. Sprung didn't, he decided to use animals to turn over the bed. He's running it like a DSB, which is incorrect.
Anyone that does it differently is doing it their own way & deviating from the succesful method. Any failures of the method is on the aquarist for not sticking to it.
You can debate it if you like, but I'm here to tell you if the plenum isn't vacumed it will accumulate detritus & over the years the bed will develop phosphate problems.
I'm done with this thread. If people want to continue to post erroneous information that's fine by me.
