Vacuuming a sand bed or not That is my question

[don.ald]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

I would do the same if some idiot hadn't put egg crate across the bottom of my tank!

Tear down that tank and remove the egg crate...I know you want to!

[albert_dao]

Aquariums sand beds and natural ecosystems are like comparing a picture of New York City to the real thing. They're imperfect recreations and expecting them to operate like the ocean is, at best, a joke.

Keep your sand bed shallow and clean it often. Five minutes of gravel vacuuming > a year's worth of cleanup crew activity.

[Aquattro]

Here is a pic of 50g water siphoned to remove a third of my 1.5" sand bed after 3 years.

[lastlight]

i turkey baste my sandbed every couple days to get all the crud into the water column and hopefully out of the display. prob only 10% does before it settles again but the corals love it. i'm going back to sucking stuff out weekly again as well.

[Basile]

I did a few LFS in the area and they all said the same thing as Diana here. You have a population of critters in your sand bed that establishe itself . If every week or two weeks you disturb that ; your getting rid of alot of helpers and those bacteria who helps you. Never mind shallow or deep it doesn't matter. Like they said if you have deposit of detritus, its because you don't have the correct CUC . Many do the vacuuming to avoid putting out for the right amount of cuc. But the down side is your compounding the problem by destroying lots of bacterias and critters on your side. They even pointed out an example of a nut case with a spatulas on the tank sides because they didn't like the colors. LOL like he said the dim witted did realise it was her bacterias working for her denitrifying her tank and transforming the polutants into less damaging chemical and elements rejouvenating and making it available to the corals. But no it wasn't pretty. Nature has its ways and works , you just have to let it. In any case theirs no right or wrong in this hobby just styles, if it works for you and enjoy your workload happy reefing. :thumbup:

[MitchM]

Originally Posted by Basile

...You have a population of critters in your sand bed that establishe itself . If every week or two weeks you disturb that ; your getting rid of alot of helpers and those bacteria who helps you. Never mind shallow or deep it doesn't matter....

Basile, that is incorrect.
A Deep Sand Bed in a reef aquarium is like a separate organism in itself. In Canada it is almost impossible to properly construct, populate and re-populate one with the appropriate organisms.
You can run your aquarium however you like of course, but your statement above does not apply to a sandbed that will help process wastes in the long run.
If you don't maintain your substrate, you will be dealing with excess nutrient problems eventually.
By maintaining I mean manually removing any detritus buildup.

[Masonjames]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

Here is a pic of 50g water siphoned to remove a third of my 1.5" sand bed after 3 years.

Ewe!

We should ask that pail full of crap wether it thinks we should be maintaining our sand beds. That ecosystem looks so biologically diverse that I wouldn't be surprised if it actually could answer back.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Masonjames

That ecosystem looks so biologically diverse that I wouldn't be surprised if it actually could answer back.

It's still moving. I'm a bit worried.