Do you vaccum your sand bed every month?

[reefinginBD]

Hey, please let me know if you vacuum your send bed every month or not? Thanks!

 

[SPR1968]

I’ve never vacuumed the sand beds in either of my tanks and the smaller one is over 5 years old

I don’t see any need to

 

[bzuca87]

Hey, please let me know if you vacuum your send bed every month or not? Thanks!

I do every water change but I’m very curious to see what ppl do

 

[Karen00]

What's interesting is that I started my freshwater tank with pool filter sand and after five years I'm assuming it's now "live" yet I vacuum it every week and don't think anything of it and I don't notice any change in parameters from doing this. On the flipside I just started my 5g saltwater tank about a month ago and I'm reluctant to vacuum it after all the reading I have done here. Having said that I don't have any sand sifters/cleaners in my tank (yet) but I have a hi fin goby and shrimp pair so I lightly skim the surface with the gravel cleaner to remove uneaten food. Each time I use the gravel cleaner in this tank I have an overwhelming urge to plunge it deep into the sand for a good clean. Maybe if I get some sand sifters the urge will go away.

 

[DarkReefer]

Needs more options in poll, but I do mine weekly with water change.
Been wondering if I can leave it for another week (both WC and sand vac), but unsure if it'd upset things...

 

[Blue Meg]

I ended up with a tank die off due to anaerobic bacteria under what looked like generally clean sand because of not vacuuming. Until recently it was always a bit of a pain in the butt because of the long gravel vacuum and how the rubber tube going into the empty five gallon container would somehow spill onto the floor. Then there was the inevitable gravel that I would suck up and have to contend with as I didn’t want to pour gravel down the utility sink.

Someone got me this piece of **** gravel vacuum off of Amazon. It actually works better. I stir the gravel with it a little bit while I vacuum and no gravel shows up in the container…only dirty water. It’s the kind of thing a novice with a ten gallon freshwater would get at the big box pet store, but it f’ing works. Tank is clean and my drain is happy.
Luigi's Aquarium/Fish Tank Siphon and Gravel Cleaner - A Hand Syphon Pump to Drain and Replace Your Water in Minutes!

 

[MartinM]

Wow, talk about destructive to the sandbed/biofauna. I’ve never done this, and never would. However, with the ‘modern’ approach of using only dead rock/sand I can see how not having biofauna in the first place could cause problems. For those of us that using 100% live rock in every system, vacuuming is definitely destructive.

 

[brahm]

Definitely, gotta stay ahead of ots.

 

[Karen00]

I ended up with a tank die off due to anaerobic bacteria under what looked like generally clean sand because of not vacuuming. Until recently it was always a bit of a pain in the butt because of the long gravel vacuum and how the rubber tube going into the empty five gallon container would somehow spill onto the floor. Then there was the inevitable gravel that I would suck up and have to contend with as I didn’t want to pour gravel down the utility sink.

Someone got me this piece of **** gravel vacuum off of Amazon. It actually works better. I stir the gravel with it a little bit while I vacuum and no gravel shows up in the container…only dirty water. It’s the kind of thing a novice with a ten gallon freshwater would get at the big box pet store, but it f’ing works. Tank is clean and my drain is happy.
Luigi's Aquarium/Fish Tank Siphon and Gravel Cleaner - A Hand Syphon Pump to Drain and Replace Your Water in Minutes!

I saw this on Amazon and wondered how well it worked. I'm glad you give it a two thumbs up. It's being added to my Amazon list as I write this Haha.

 

[Blue Meg]

I saw this on Amazon and wondered how well it worked. I'm glad you give it a two thumbs up. It's being added to my Amazon list as I write this Haha.

My girlfriend got into reefing recently and as we all tend to do when we start, she went crazy. That’s also when we now have a frag tank and seahorse tank in addition to the 85 gallon reef. Not to mention the massive pod “infestation”. One of the things she purchased was a piece of crap siphon with a grate on the front that prohibits a bunch of gravel from getting through while letting the gunk get sucked up. It was major cringe when she bought it, but it works and my frag and reef are prestine.

 

[Paul B]

I stir up my entire substrait a couple of times a year all the way under my dolomite gravel to my reverse undergravel filter and suck it out with a diatom filter.

 

[Billdogg]

I have vacuumed a portion of the sandbed every water change since 1987. I do ~1/3 to 1/2 each time. I use a python siphon and cannot imagine water changes without using it.

 

[Stoney]

I ended up with a tank die off due to anaerobic bacteria under what looked like generally clean sand because of not vacuuming. Until recently it was always a bit of a pain in the butt because of the long gravel vacuum and how the rubber tube going into the empty five gallon container would somehow spill onto the floor. Then there was the inevitable gravel that I would suck up and have to contend with as I didn’t want to pour gravel down the utility sink.

Someone got me this piece of **** gravel vacuum off of Amazon. It actually works better. I stir the gravel with it a little bit while I vacuum and no gravel shows up in the container…only dirty water. It’s the kind of thing a novice with a ten gallon freshwater would get at the big box pet store, but it f’ing works. Tank is clean and my drain is happy.
Luigi's Aquarium/Fish Tank Siphon and Gravel Cleaner - A Hand Syphon Pump to Drain and Replace Your Water in Minutes!

Just curious, how do you know anaerobic bacteria in the sand was the problem? I see a lot of people blame tank crashes on old sand beds, but it's often times by elimination.

 

[Gedxin]

Agree with @Stoney , what's the evidence it was a non-distirbed sand bed that led to the crash? For every post I read if people cleaning their beds, there's and equal post saying they don't.

Personally I have nassarius snails and hermit crabs. I hope that's sufficient as I hadn't planned on vacuuming my bed much if at all.

 

[lxxnp1234]

my current tank has deep sand base. I’ve never vacuumed the sand base.

 

[fishmanmilex]

I vacuum lightly every time i do a water change, which is once a week. I go until the sand looks clean but not fresh out of the bag clean.

 

[Pkunk35]

I vacuum a thin layer of sand bed once every two weeks or so. Have been considering a sea cucumber in the tank and wondering if it would help to turn the bed over and eat some of the debris that comes up and actually make it look cleaner in between cleanings as I have no real sand critters that do this.

 

[1ocean]

In my 140 I do minor clean the sand bed about once a month but in the 300 we are building, we are doing no sand.. going to use some big very flat rocks in spots on the tank floor to give look of a ledge and increase our water flow without sand storms....