Water Changes.

[cody3819]

When doing a water change should I suck out the sand bed . To me this would get all my good bacteria and micro organisms out the sand bed. New to the hobby and about to do my first change this week. I also have Nassuarius snails, how will this impact them in my sand bed. 29G bio cube with 30lbs of Fiji Pink love sand.

 

[Salty Cracker]

Leave the sand bed alone.

 

[Ron Reefman]

What percentage of the tank are you changing? No, you should try and leave the sand alone. If it gets dirty/ugly on top, just stir it up some and it will look like new. Some people 'vacuum' the sand with a special tool, but it really isn't worth the effort or good for the tank.

 

[CStrickland]

When I change the water I vacuum the sand bed out. I stuck a rigid tube on the end of the siphon hose. It's pretty gross what comes out of there. None of my sand dwellers mind, snails, wrasse, goby. If you are trying to have a functional deep sand bed over 3 inches I wouldn't do it, but if you have less than that I think it's a really great way to keep the tank healthy by getting poop and leftover food out of there rather than letting it break down into nitrates and phosphate and then getting them out of the water. For me there's plenty of bacteria inside the rocks, and I guess I have enough "microorganisms"

PS I also use a turkey baster to blow off the rocks before I vacuum. A lot of gross stuff comes out of there too. Also, I think it's good to do from the beginning, if you let a lot of nastiness build up in there you have to be careful about stirring it up

 

[laga77]

Yes, every other month vacuum the sand bed out with a python type device. Do not just stir up the sand/gravel.

 

[Johnnycat]

Yes, every other month vacuum the sand bed out with a python type device. Do not just stir up the sand/gravel.

When you say "vacuum out" do you mean you remove the sand, rinse it outside the tank, and put it back or do you use the vacuum tube to circulate the sand to get detritus out (but not actually remove the sand)?

 

[ericarenee]

my sand bed is in 3 containers in my fuge. every 4-6 months i will pull one of them out Rinse it in a bucket with aquarium water and put it back.. next time the next bed ...

NO SAND IN MY DISPLAY
Do not rinse deep sand beds... And if you are having to clean the sand bed often your over feeding my opinion

 

[nmotz]

So, lots of varying advice here. Obviously, personal preferences aren't all the same regarding this issue.

If it were me, at this stage of the tank's life I would not vacuum the sandbed. Your tank is probably pretty clean at this point anyway. I usually vacuum about once a month. I just take the vacuum hose and put right on top of the sand. The suction will pull up any nastiness, and I try to avoid churning up the sandbed too much because that can cause an ammonia spike (not always, but it is possible). But some tanks don't ever really accumulate too much junk in the sand. If you have a lightly stocked tank or have a great CUC, you might not have to do this. My tank is lightly stocked and I have a fairly large CUC, which is why I only vacuum 1x/month.

 

[KingTriton1]

A lot will depend on how deep your sand is. If you are running a DSB then I wouldn't touch it. For everything else, I would vacuum out the sand at each water change to remove as much detritus as possible. This will help reduce nitrate build up. This won't have any impact on your snails.

 

[mluntz]

I very rarely touch my sandbed. Take out 10%, put in 10%, done.

 

[cody3819]

I'll leave it alone, I believe my Nassuarius snails should agitate the sand bed enough.

 

[Justintegra]

A lot will depend on how deep your sand is. If you are running a DSB then I wouldn't touch it. For everything else, I would vacuum out the sand at each water change to remove as much detritus as possible. This will help reduce nitrate build up. This won't have any impact on your snails.

Why the difference? I am starting a biocube later this week, and plan for a 1.5-2" sand bed. I had always planned on stirring from the beginning right before I do my water changes each week and try to suck up as much of what is churned up with the siphon, as VividAquariums suggest.

 

[cody3819]

I have just read on line and seem videos on YouTube. There are some people I see who like to suck the sand when they do water changes. It agitates the bed. But in my head it is also sucking out the beneficial bacteria. I have 3 snails that live in the sand bed they come out when my moon lights cone on and clean all night. Along with them I have 6 red legged hermits that get into my rock and they also get in the sand bed but not as good as my snails.

 

[CStrickland]

one of the reasons people use deep sand beds is to cultivate denitrifying bacteria in the deeper regions where there is less oxygen. The thinking is that if you stir them up, they will die from exposure. Scarier to me is the possibility that the low oxygen areas develop pockets of poisonous hydrogen sulfide. That's bad news for a tank of it gets released.

It's not so much about agitating the bed, it's about using the water change to replace the dirtiest water in the tank. The stuff that comes out looks dirty even when the sand seems clean. It's just a gravity thing.

Personally, I haven't had trouble keeping nitrates low (I'm happy if they're under 10ppm), so I don't think I'm sucking out anything beneficial. I think of it as a front door / back door problem. I get the organic material out the front door before it decays into ammonia, then nitrates; some prefer to leave it in and use the dsb to take the nitrates out the back door. I guess you also need gfo for the phosphates too. I have less than a # of rock per gallon of water, no skimmer and I feed 3-4 times a day. I can't think of any other reason that I don't have the issues some do? *knocks wood*

 

[Tflow256]

As stated, deep sand beds should never be touched. Shallow sand beds is personal preference for the most part. It has a lot to do with your cuc in my opinion. If you have a good amount a sand sifting species (nassarius, conch, stars, gobies) there should be no reason to really clean it. In my current build I'm taking this into consideration and will try and have adequate cuc members to keep sand clean for me