How to clean sandbed without cleaning sandbed?

[Miami Reef]

I have corals and clams throughout the sand bed. My tank is deep as well. Is siphoning the sand bed worth it? I have about 3 inches deep but I can’t reach the back because of rocks. What’s my best course of action?

my sand is currently white and clean, but my tank is new and I want to prevent old tank syndrome

 

[Miami Reef]

This is my tank:

Would you worry about siphoning this tank? If the benefits outweighs the struggle of siphoning, I'll do it! I'm not lazy at all, I just don't know if it's worth it.

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-white-sand-method.252861/
I like this one for large tankers

tank is looking great, with preventative stick stirring it seems best way to keep it this sharp, nice way to study outcomes before hand. Any catch-up work is impossible in massive reefs you have plenty of time to implement a plan.


start easy, not big areas. You still have a little waste in the sand, liberate it slowly then consistently, small areas at a time


*initial starts can cause a little minor tradeoff algae at the start, it’s better than waiting years to begin at least.

 

[N.Sreefer]

A pistol shrimp would stir the sand for ya, alot less work than doing it yourself. I have a couple conches that stir my sand.

 

[Spare time]

Consider waste away. I really like that stuff.

 

[CanuckReefer]

A pistol shrimp would stir the sand for ya, alot less work than doing it yourself. I have a couple conches that stir my sand.

Yep same, and brittle star, sand sift star, and sea cucumber...I also stir it up myself the odd time, maybe every few weeks, a bit here and there. Key word a bit....

 

[Cell]

Just make sure to do your research though before buying a critter. Pistol shrimp can be PITA's. Stars and cucumbers will starve in newer sand beds.

 

[brandon429]

Cell agreed


don’t select anything that doesn’t have at least thirty pages work thread, not worth the risk in large tanks to experiment. Disease imports too, from live animals experimented with. If that big awesome tank was mine it’d prob be bare bottom but I know some fish like sand, and sand looks better than bb. *no doubt animals can pull it off, I recall the goby video where the mans sandbed was as clean as our rip cleaned beds, but it lacks repeating in massive work tests. If a few fish did it always, nobody above would be stick stirring


these big tanks don’t matter much initially, anything seems to work due to the dilution at hand and the clean start. But the key is watching other people’s huge tanks that matured them out, checking for patterns in outcomes not just ideal claims.

 

[Jekyl]

Nassarius snails are a big help for me.

 

[Spare time]

Another thing to consider along with adding bacterias (microbacter clean, pns probio, waste away) is to dose iron (and other trace elements too) if you are concerned with hydrogen sulfide.


Enough critters in the tank and you shouldn't need to clean the sanded manually (my sandbed is 5 to 6 inches in some parts and only 1 tiny spot in sand is not cleaned. I have cleaned more sand than the average person would like to and I can definitely say that you can tell when a tank has the right clean up crew

 

[Cell]

I love nassarius snails. My tiger pistols pick them off though.

 

[720 Reefer]

Nassarius snails, conchs, sand sifting goby (if you don’t mind sand being dropped on corals). I have all and never cleaned my sand in 2 years. Pearly white