Vacuuming Sand - Observation

[serpentman]

For over a decade, I have always been of the belief, "don't disturb the sand" in my tank. Well, after battling some nutrient issues in my 300g SPS tank (due to the death of a large fish) which took several months to bring back, I decided to remove some of my sandbed which was 3-4" deep. I began a regimen of aggressively vacuuming my sandbed, just like an old school FW gravel tank. Each week when I do my water changes, I vacuum about 1/4 of the tank and am removing some nasty gunk.

Over the past 6 weeks, I noticed my ORP has been steadily climbing and now is consistently 415-420 without running Ozone. What's particularly interesting is that I have a relatively high bioload for an SPS setup. I've noticed the corals have responded and am actually also seeing explosive pod growth.

Some of you bare bottom advocates will probably chuckle at this. However, I believe this is a way to achieve some of the BB success with the natural look of sand.

I'm not saying this is for everyone and would certainly not recommend this with DSB. However, for anyone with a shallow sand bed that is battling excess nutrients, this may be something to consider....

 

[ritter6788]

So are you replacing the sand that you vacuum out or are you just slowly removing it all? What do you think is causing the "explosive pod growth".

 

[AquaReeferMan]

I dont think he is removing any of the sand. Just vacuuming the detritus out of it.

 

[ritter6788]

I decided to remove some of my sandbed which was 3-4" deep. ...

I dont think he is removing any of the sand. Just vacuuming the detritus out of it.

Unless it's really coarse sand some of it is going to be vacuumed out even if you don't want to.

 

[Northern Sensei]

should we vacuum shallow sandbeds?

should we vacuum shallow sandbeds?

i haven't yet, but i to am wondering if i should be vacuuming my sandbed it is only about 1 - 2 inches deep, so any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated

 

[scubasteve06]

I also have a minor DSB in my tank around 3-3.5". I take an aquarium tool about once a week with a comb attachment and rake the top .5" of sand to allow the detritus to suspend in the water column and to allow the overflow to take it to the sump to be skimmed out and for some of the detritus to reach fuge as food for my pods. I've been doing this for about 3-4 months will no ill effects. I however do not touch my sand bed in my fuge, but it has about 100-125gph going thru a 10l"x12w"x14"h area which is roughly 10g, but only about 3/4 of that is filled. Doing the math thats roughly 12-15x turnover which I think is sufficient flow to keep hydrogen sulfide from building up in my sand bed. It hasn't turned black (yet keeping fingers crossed) it is more of a natual sand color with purple/green in it like my sand bed in the display. I have been thinking about getting about 20 ceriths to put in there to get some kind of movement in the sand bed.

 

[abrian]

I clean the open areas of my 2" sand bed every three weeks when I do a water change in my sps display tank. I am curious why someone with a shallow sand bed would not want to clean their sand bed with a gravel vac?