When is the last time you vacuumed your sand bed? Does it matter?

When is the last time you vacuumed your sand bed?

  • A week ago

    Votes: 230 29.0%
  • A few weeks ago

    Votes: 154 19.4%
  • A few months ago

    Votes: 69 8.7%
  • It's been 6 months or more

    Votes: 51 6.4%
  • It's been over a year

    Votes: 28 3.5%
  • It's been several years

    Votes: 24 3.0%
  • I've never vacuumed the sand

    Votes: 190 24.0%
  • Other (please explain)

    Votes: 47 5.9%

  • Total voters
    793

revhtree

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Many reefers have sand in their reef tank and many of us want to keep the sand clean, white and pristine! One way you can achieve a clean sand bed is to clean it! HA! Imagine that! One of the ways to clean a sand bed is to use a cleaning tool and siphon the detritus from the sand. We call it vacuuming the sand. Easy right? Not always. This can be a difficult task if you don't have the right tools or your sand is not easily accessible or you're lazy :p as well as other variables. This difficulty can lead us to not cleaning the sand at all. Then again some reefers don't believe it's necessary at all so let's talk about it!

1. When is the last time you vacuumed your sand bed?

2. Do you think vacuuming your sand bed will help mitigate issues in the long term progress of your reef?


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Brady4000

I just wanted a Mantis Shrimp.
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question: if you rinse out your whole sandbed with tap, and set it back clear as a snowglobe occasionally is that good or bad
Well, your pods are going to think it was a bad thing lol. My vote: depends on the tapwater.

Edit: I’ll add, also as long as your tank isn’t dependent on the bacteria in the sand bed and your live rock can hold it’s own, on the bio load.
 
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The_Skrimp

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I definitely think you can over do it especially if you’re trying to build biodiversity in a new tank. I started out vacuuming every week with my water changes. It wasn’t till I actually started doing less water changes and stopped vacuuming the sand but once every few months that the gross browns started to disappear.
 

DDenny

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I choose other cause I just vacuumed and water changed Sunday morning. I usually vacuum and water change twice a month or longer if the water chemistry still looks good.
 

Dania

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I try to vacuum every time but because it’s in a semi dark corner I’m not sure how good a job I’m doing. However I will be putting up a small light over the tank just to use when cleaning so I will be able to do a better job.
 

Kongar

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I WANT to clean my sandbed more frequently, but I can't. In a 1 year old nano, every time I touch the sand, I get a dino outbreak. I don't understand what's going on other than "there's some biologically diverse life in undisturbed sand that's keeping the dinos in check" It's taken me a long time to figure this out, but "not touching it" is working out much better than anything else. Maybe that will change in another year or so. /shrug
 

Aquatic acrobat in your aquarium: Have you ever kept an eel?

  • I currently keep an eel in my tank.

    Votes: 29 14.8%
  • I have kept an eel in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 33 16.8%
  • I have not kept an eel in my tank, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 35 17.9%
  • I have no plans to keep an eel.

    Votes: 96 49.0%
  • Other.

    Votes: 3 1.5%
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