Sand bed Cleaning

[fernalfer]

I have a 120 gallon tank with a 2 inch and 2 1/2 in some areas of sand. Now my tank will be 1 year old next week and i have not cleaned the sand bed since starting my tank up. My sand bed is really starting to look dirty and get cluttered with detritus.

Now i hear pros and cons to cleaning the sand bed but my CUC just can't keep up. So my question is will it be ok to start cleaning it with a vacuum at water changes if i just do little sections at a time? Or will that cause issues.

 

[wkscott]

It's perfectly fine to clean it. As you mentioned do maybe one quarter of it with each water change so that you don't get too much detritus in the water or release too much hydrogen sulfide at one time.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Why not just do a Dsb. Just add a bag of sand.
If you can see worms and micro fauna in the sand your good to go.

If your set in cleaning it I would highly reccomend running a canister filter with carbon and gfo and lots of floss. No media. Or a diatom filter really. A canister is cheap.

 

[fernalfer]

Well i siphoned my sand bed a couple days ago. I only did a little tiny section all the way to the bottom. Pulled a lot of detritus and gunk out of the sand. Noticed my sand was also pretty packed down so doing this really aerated the sandbed. No negative effects from doing so. Actually my corals were fuller then ever maybe because they went into feed mode with all the stuff suspended in the water.

Question how long should i wait to do another little section? Or is a couple days ok? I just heard it wasn't good to do all at once.

 

[Flatlandreefer]

Do the next section when you normally would do your next water change. Once you do the whole sandbed keep the rotation up each water change to help keep the sand clean. It's amazing how much stuff accumulates in a weeks time!

 

[brandon429]

Id enjoy seeing you take a sample of the densest part of what you are removing from your sandbed Fernalfer and concentrate the mud in a cup somehow creatively

let the sample sit for two days and keep it topped off and then stir up the sample roughly after two days open topped (so bac can get air as they work on protein digestion) and test for nitrate. then test the water column of the tank for nitrate at the same time and post the two results, from that we know the impact to the system of what you are removing.

if a po4 test was handy that would be neat to see, its the nitrate portion that should be predictably higher depending on how well you concentrated the original sample and the po4 readings might take several days before they register. the nitrate should produce as a spike in a couple days wait time in a concentrated sample it would be neat to see if you have high nutrient density detritus.

 

[BlueCursor]

My diamondback goby keeps my 2" sand bed clean. He doesn't consult me on what he is moving and to where, but my sand bed is clean.

 

[ahiggins]

My diamondback goby keeps my 2" sand bed clean. He doesn't consult me on what he is moving and to where, but my sand bed is clean.

sorry to take this off topic but how do you think a diamond goby would fare in a 10 gallon? I have a lot of baby rock nems in there that Im worried he would cover...
whats your thought on it?