stirring sand

[jmack]

I have a 2-3" sand bed...how often do I need to stir it to release detrius and organics?

 

[bertoni]

I don't stir sand at all. That grinds up animals, etc, in it. I just let the cleanup crew deal with it.

 

[stelow]

Not done on any kind of regular basis it's not a practised maintenance. If you did do it, do it very lightly in a small area.

 

[Lpabsolute]

Shouldn't stir up or mess with the sand. Get a good clean up crew of snails/crabs/shrimp and don't worry about it. They will take care of any sand prob. you might have. Stiring up the sand is again not a good idea.

 

[dwculp]

DONT stir your sand. Do like the others said, get a good cleanup crew and seed your sandbed with lots of sand sifting critters such as mini-stars, worms and other creatures! The animals in the sand bed will keep it stirred and oxygenated!

 

[dragonyze]

i lightly vacuum the substrate surface (about 1/2 inch down) as part of my water change routine. nassarius snails do an EXCELLENT job of keeping everything else below that stirred/aerated, plus theyre always hungry for anything that comes to rest on the sand. great addition to any cleanup crew. and its cool to see them all materialize from the sand during feeding time.

 

[dchao]

Don't stir it, use power heads to move the detritus off the top of the sand, use a turkey turkey blaster to target areas that can't be reached by water flow. Nassarius are very good, Cerith Snails will also do a good job turning over the sand as they eat the algae. I don't like to use large inverts that will clean out the fauna in the sand bed.