Cleaning Ugly Sand

[Oscar]

Thanks Bill and Leah. I will start that this weekend.

After I get the current situation cleaned up then is siphoning a regular maintenance program?

[Leah]

How deep is your sandbed? Yes I just use the hagen siphon's I think I got them from J&L.
Start slow, do not go overboard and time it with a water change

[Oscar]

Originally Posted by Leah

How deep is your sandbed?

Sandbed is about 2" deep. Yes, I will take it slow and make it part of my water change process from here on.

[Oscar]

I invested in a gravel siphon this week. Changed my carbon and GFO yesterday morning before siphoning.

My normal water change is 4G (13% of my water). The siphon drains water very quickly compared to how much sand is cleaned but this sure works. I filled one 4G tub yesterday and another 4G tub this morning but really did not clean much sand.

I checked for phosphates with my Elos test kit but still showing zero.

I noticed that last night my candy cane did not extend its polyps for the first time in months.

I would like to continue siphoning through the week but should I wait until the candy cane shows its polyps again as an indicator that the water has returned to normal?

I would wate a few adys (2-3) in between the siphonings to let things get back to normal.
Are you just siphoning one small part of your tank at a time, that is what I would do. If the siphon picks out alot of sand you can lift the siphon up off the sand and slow the flow a bit. This lets the heavy sand fall beck to the sand bed and will still clean it as the small particals will stay in the siphon. If you want to do a larger area of your sand you can, just plan on doing a larger water change your corals should respond quicker also.

Bill

[Oscar]

Originally Posted by bvlester

I would wate a few adys (2-3) in between the siphonings to let things get back to normal.

Bill

Bill: As many have said, good things happen slowly. So I will take your advice and siphon maybe twice a week. At this rate it will take me until Christmas to get through the first round of sand cleaning. Then it will become part of my usual water change regimen.

I am saying every 2-3 days to let your corals recover a bit in before going through it again or you can do the whole thing in 1 go this may stress them to much. as your tank is so small. you could upgrade your tank as a xmas gift to yourself and make the sand cleaning a part of the up grade. use your tank water to wash out the sand and then use a bit of new salt mix to rinse the sand before adding to the new tank. other things you can do is put everything a large tough toot and do a sand cleaning and rinse with new salt water mix. one other thing I didn't remember to let you know when you clean a new area you should give the area that you have already cleaned a once over.

After carfull thought I have changed my opinion as to what I would do. My self I would do the large tough toot idea or upgrade to a larger tank. It would take less time and way less work. As it seems that you are cleaning only a very small area. This way all you would have to do is siphon as regular maintenance.

I am giving you more options as we go.
Bill