Do you clean your sand bed?

[mandarin man]

Hi,

I am wondering is it good to vacumm my sand bed sucking out the waste (1.5 inch sand bed). If yes, how do you do it? Vacumm just at the surface or go all the way down to the bottom completely clean?

Thanks

[banditpowdercoat]

I just lightly vacuum the surface without disturbing the bed

[Myka]

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.

[Piscez]

I used to do the above unitl I got my Yellow head sleeper goby now I never touch it as it's always clean, I call here Catherine (my wifes name!)

[walloutlet]

Originally Posted by Piscez

I used to do the above unitl I got my Yellow head sleeper goby now I never touch it as it's always clean, I call here Catherine (my wifes name!)

Nice!!!!

[BlueWorldAquatic]

Sand sifting stars and dragon gobies. Get them and you won't be touching the sand bed too much after that.

I stirred up my sandbed in my personal tank at home, and killed my frogspawn after some bacteria got into it.

Ken - BWA