During water changes, I use a siphon hose to suck out any detritus on the surface, then I gently stir my sandbed in it's entirety hovering above it with the siphon as I stir. If you haven't done this before, this can be very dangerous since an undisturbed sandbed will often have areas of Hydrogen sulfide (black stinky patches), and the release of these areas can lead to a major algae bloom, and possibly crash the tank.
If you haven't stirred the sandbed before, but want to start you need to start off slowly by only stirring maybe 10% of the sandbed per week. Each week do your old 10% plus a new 10%, and keep up on it.
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~ Mindy
SPS fanatic.
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