The best way to vacuum your sand bed! Would this work?

[SHNICI]

Brandon has been preaching the benefits of "rip cleans" in which you remove the fish/corals/rocks, rinse the sand in a bucket and then reacclimate everything. It eliminates detritus, pockets or rotting organics and algae while not impacting the bacterial populations involved in the nitrogen cycle.

I see, I got it and thank you! But only one question (regarding the SB if it's just like a 5mm or few inches), how isn't impacting the bacteria population if you do cleaning it (the SB), every single disturbance on it make changes (I'm not saying bad negative for his case), but still make changes. Only 1 way I don't see any impact at all: if the SB is near 5-10mm, and if taking it out you don't expose it to air at all, and you do rinse it with the same water in which it's been, and you don't just cover it with new water and after that you acclimate everything else.

 

[Paul B]

I don't like sand so I use dolomite gravel available at any museum or mausoleum. A couple of times a year I stir up all the gravel where I can reach and suck it out with a diatom filter. I put a long, rigid hose with a bend near the end on the outflow of the diatom filter.

This has only worked for fifty years but I hear after fifty one years you start to have problems. ;Meh

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

I see, I got it and thank you! But only one question (regarding the SB if it's just like a 5mm or few inches), how isn't impacting the bacteria population if you do cleaning it (the SB), every single disturbance on it make changes (I'm not saying bad negative for his case), but still make changes. Only 1 way I don't see any impact at all: if the SB is near 5-10mm, and if taking it out you don't expose it to air at all, and you do rinse it with the same water in which it's been, and you don't just cover it with new water and after that you acclimate everything else.

So the trick is essentially to essentially rinse the sandbed with tap until it is clear and do a final rinse with RO. Stirring the sandbed up without a rinse will lead to nitrogen pockets being released. So when I moved my nano tank a month ago I remove everything and put the sand in a bucket. I rinsed the sand about 8x and put everything back in and reduced my lighting for a week. Not a single issue or ammonia spike.

 

[SHNICI]

I don't like sand so I use dolomite gravel available at any museum or mausoleum. A couple of times a year I stir up all the gravel where I can reach and suck it out with a diatom filter. I put a long, rigid hose with a bend near the end on the outflow of the diatom filter.

This has only worked for fifty years but I hear after fifty one years you start to have problems. ;Meh

That's the best I'll do if I ever start to have issues with my DSB.

 

[takitaj]

I have a 1 1/2" to 2" sand bed and I vacuum it every water change but I don't remove any. There's always lots of junk in the bin afterwards so I can see it does help.

I use the Python gravel vac. It uses 1/2" tubing with about a 2" dia vac tube and a valve to control the flow. Just enough flow to pull sand in and suck the gunk out of it but not enough to pull it up the tube, just right.

 

[steveb]

I recently started using one of these things stuffed full of filter floss to clean my sand bed:

It’s basically a small canister filter that hooks to the side of your tank and filters out the gunk before returning the water to the tank.
I don’t do manual water changes since I have a AWC system set up and my sump is in another room so just running the water through a filter sock and down to the sump isn’t an option for me.

Is it available in US? all of the matches google provided are across the pond.

 

[piranhaman00]

Does anyone attach a pump to their siphon to mechanically pull up the sand bed? I want to hook up tubing to pump water from sand bed through a filter sock

 

[sp1187]

1. What do you guys think and what are the best ways you have found to vacuum your sand bed?

this guy sez "just say no."

2. Do you like to siphon off the top layer of your sand from time to time?
see above

 

[Jilly92]

I siphon off the top layer from time to time when it gets dirty, or has a good amount of detritus built up.

I throw it in a bucket with some bleach, let it sit for a couple days. Then rinse in RO/DI, and let sit with some prime and RO/DI for a couple days. Let it air dry, and bag it up for future use. When my tank gets low, I'll just dump it back in.

Been doing it this way for years with 0 problem. My sandbed always looks nice and white.

Bleach?? Why bleach?

 

[S.Pepper]

1. What do you guys think and what are the best ways you have found to vacuum your sand bed?

this guy sez "just say no."

2. Do you like to siphon off the top layer of your sand from time to time?
see above

I have a fighting conch that does an awesome job not only on my sand... it will also climb the back wall and rocks. I need to get another one of these. Additionally, with my weekly water changes, I stir the sand up with a small rake and turn the power heads to full power.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

Is it available in US? all of the matches google provided are across the pond.

Sorry, can’t help you there chief, being Swedish and stuff I bought it from Germany.

This thing looks like it does basically the same thing but with a bit more complexity.

 

[stanleo]

Every water change I syphon all the sand I can reach till it's nice and white and the bucket is very dirty. There is always about a cup or two of sand in the bucket but I don't syphon out the top layer. In a couple days the sand starts getting brown with diatoms (I think that's what it is) and the next water change I do it all over again. Doesn't look really bad so I don't really worry about it too much.

 

[andrewkw]

My sand is in 5 gallon buckets under my deck outside. My reef and me are both happy with this arrangement.

 

[User1]

This is a complicated question to answer that is going to bring forward a lot of personal opinions and anecdotal replies. Not going to say right or wrong but if any of you visited a couple other forums 20 years ago you would know what I'm referring to. Some of which is already being hinted at here.

Here is my take on it. There is no best way to vacuum because all of our systems are designed differently. Yes, there may be similarities to some degree but overall they are more different than similar. This is important to note because it makes things either more difficult or easy to do routine things. Things that are difficult do not get done compared to easier things. Right? Then there is the whole hobbyist perspective such that some are lazy (me) and others are obsessive compulsive

So to my own personal opinion on it. You can have no sand, sand, rocks, pebbles, and any combination of the lot of it but at the end of the day the design of the system dictates the best way. Best way, if you can, cannot, etc. The design of the marine biotype we keep directs what we can and cannot do. Equipment, tank, flow patters, marine life, etc. How much of it can be done by the design and stocking vs hobbyist intervention.

The real world Mother Nature has creatures with jobs to do this. She also has her temper tantrums. The two combined provide a natural way to manage it whereas we hobbyists do not. But if designed properly it does make doing this tasks much easier or not necessary at all.

Sifting fish, crabs, snails, and clams/oysters. Power heads with flow patterns like nutrient transport mode. Great working skimmers. Overflow design for proper skimming, media to filter water, etc.

I personally believe if it is left unmanaged then at some point there will be trouble. The key for me has been how to clean without vacuuming up the life in the bed. And because that is my main focus I rely more on short storm high flow sessions to blow everything around then switch to the nutrient transport mods and high flow to remove it. Hard to say how this will work long term because I'm only 2 1/2 years into my upgrade. However, it is something that I've done for a while now and this current tank is a accumulation of tanks going back 11 years or so.

I do see one more upgrade or side grade coming since I need to make the tank easier to maintain after a hip replacement earlier in the year. Substrate, flow, and maintenance are going to be the primary design points this time rather than volume.

 

[WVNed]

I dont bother my sand bed unless I need to move some it from one place to the other. It does drift a bit over time.

 

[rob s.]

It was just a regular tube. He said something about 3d Printing the top connecter. That is the one part that stops me from trying to do it.

it looks like some pretty common plumbing items... a reducing "fernco" used to join together different diameter waste pipes together. One end goes ont the vacuum tube, the other gets a correct size plug with a glue socket to fit the t barb that's being used. Bet you can find it all at your local home depot for under 20 bucks. easy peasy

 

[brandon429]

prior there were some questions about bacterial impacts for access/cleaning and replacement of sand.

these interpretations of what bacteria are doing come from the patterned thread linked above where seneye and mindstream nh3 readings during jobs give us the best view of what filter bacteria do that we are going to get in 2020. As soon as better data is made we will adopt that interpretation.


high points:

-your bacteria in the sandbed do not matter one iota as a requirement. They're bioloading, like fish, who suck up oxygen and produce co2 and waste acids as a complex with many species of bacteria all working inside scum mats and slicks. Some nitrifying, some working on particulate substrate all mixed in

they can be instantly removed, with no wait times, counter to all known reef rules about sandbeds. we're on page forty of doing just that.


live rocks do NOT take on more bacteria to make up for lack of sand, that was made up so that api .25 misreads could make sense at the time.


-ripping all or some of the sandbed bacteria out does no harm to your reef. Brs did it wrong, we do it a different way. Its the order of ops you use to rip out the sand that matters, because the filthy detritus among the grains is what will kill many reefs not ever lack of bacteria. Light burning is where brs missed it on their removal review, they needed to re ramp the led lighting. Removing all organics means your light intensity needs to drop, I don’t know why that’s just the working pattern.

When we remove accessory surface area surrounding live rocks, that does NOT leave the live rocks short on bacteria to handle your fish and other bioloading... the rocks are simply instantly able to handle your bioload because all reef rocks are massive surface area sinks beyond what a typical bioload commands.

forum posters simply made up the rule that our sandbed was an integral link to a reef tank, and has to be habituated to be free of it.

same scenario: take any reef tank on this forum and install six new canister filters packed with dry siporax media.

leave all six canister filters in line for two years, they're cycled by mere association in the first 20 days (and if disconnected, can pass oxidation testing each on their own, they're now part of this system)

after two years running, instantly remove all six canister filters


the reef does not die, seneye doesnt show an ammonia spike because your sand and your rocks were enough to handle things without the filters. This exact rule applies to your sand


so that means cleaning a tank is never harmful or destabilizing if your method does not kick up detritus. You will never cause a lack of bacteria in anything you do in reefing.


In any job from our thread prior, we could have yanked the sand and a third of the live rocks permanently gone and the reef would still run just fine. live rock is that much of a filter set.


we have reefs here who stir up detritus and nothing dies: that works in one off reports but in work threads / chaos if someone would like to try we need to see alternate ways tested

 

[mermaid_life]

I like this question. It's such a pain!

I currently use a python to clean the sandbed into a mesh sock that is inside a filter sock back into my sump. I try to avoid sucking out the sand but if it happens, it's caught in the mesh sock. I then rinse the sand in the mesh sock in a bucket and dump the clean sand back in.

 

[McPuff]

I go through times of sand vacuuming and leaving it alone. Right now I'm entering a time where I can tell I need to vacuum the sand. I'll take my regular gravel vac hose and suck up the sand, trying not to let the actual sand get all the way up to the tube. The gunk shoots right up and out of the sand, then I pinch the hose to allow the sand to fall back down but still remove the gunk. So it's a series of strong siphon, then weak siphon. Works really well to pull out the gunk and leave nice white sand. I only do about 8 gallons worth of vacuuming at a time so that generally equates to about 1/3 to 1/2 of my sand bed. I'll do the other part(s) of the sand bed in a week or so to avoid stirring up too much all at once. I really should do this about once every couple months but it's now been at least 4 or 5 months since the last time I did it. I have found this to be a very effective way to control nutrients, along with siphoning the detritus from the sump every 2-3 weeks.

 

[Funston07]

It was just a regular tube. He said something about 3d Printing the top connecter. That is the one part that stops me from trying to do it.

Could just get a pvc cap or reducer and add a 90° elbow fitting for whatever hose size. Or use a flex pipe coupler used for plumbing purposes. They just have the resources to get fancy. Home Depot and Lowes have everything you need to build most tools used in reef maintenance.