Is a consistently clean sand bed an attainable goal?

[tiggs]

For me, it's all about maintaining a sand bed that's clean in regards to general appearance and nutrient levels, but not clean from life. There's a lot of middle ground between completely sterile and nitrogen pockets that'll torch your entire tank. Personally, I've never rinsed an established sand bed and I never will. Some folks do that and have success, but I personally don't want any part of my reef THAT clean. I've always been of the opinion that algae covered substrate is more to do with nutrient export, lack of ample CUC (especially detritivores and sand stirrers), lack of flow throughout the tank (the biggest reason, IMO), and sometimes lighting issues.

Every tank has detritus that can build up and cause issues if you allow that to happen. It's not a matter of eliminating it from our tanks and IMO, shouldn't have to be a reason we go into deep cleaning mode. It's all about keeping it suspended in the water column so it becomes coral food and ultimately makes its way to our filter floss/socks. The small amount that does settle on the ground is nothing more than CUC territory. If I ever do notice a small build up of detritus, I'll stir it up during a water change, but that's the extent of it with me.

 

[SamW]

I’m always slowly (very slowly) replacing my sand bed with water changes. Each time I take out some old sand and replace with new (RO rinsed live sand). Usually only about 1/2 cup or so- never enough to trigger any type of cycling activity.

 

[mike werner]

I tried to keep a white sand bed but ended up replacen with a rubble bottom 1/2 to 3/4 inch rocks.up side is it looks just like my rock and totally covered in purple.looks great but it traps a lot of fine stuff that has to be sucked up every so often.

 

[TessGlo]

In my experience with two different reef tanks it takes:
1) Patience
2) Diamond Goby
3) Flow
4) Patience
Let me explain: Patience for several reasons. You will need to wait for your goby to get past the I must create mountains and a sand storm in your tank phase. Eventually both of my gobies stopped making such a mess and settled down to just regular vacuuming activities and almost not re grading efforts. Patience because if your tank is new and you used dry rock you are going to go through some ugly phases that may particularly affect the sand bed, don't overreact just be patient. Patience because when you have sand you need time to adjust your power heads along with coral growth so that flow is strong but not strong enough to move the sand. Flow because every time I have noticed cyano or brown stand anywhere in my tank and I have acceptable NO4/PO3, it improved with stronger flow to or near that area (i.e. right above the sand bed).

 

[vlangel]

Good flow combined with low but balanced No3/PO4 and proper Cal/Alk/Mag levels has always worked for me. Once you get it dialed in, the sand bed almost seems take care of itself

The sand in my seahorse tank has had cyano or diatoms since I added it. I ran this tank bare bottom( but painted white on the underside) for over a year, but I missed the look of sand. I decided to add more flow over the sand by pointing a powerhead toward the wall and floor. It cleared all the sand away in that spot but the remaining sand seems to be staying cleaner.
2018-06-15_07-57-00 by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr