Sand Bed Cleaning

I

IThinkItsDeadJim

New member
Does anyone have some suggestions on cleaning up a sand bed? I have a variety or snails and crabs (30+ in a 15G), but my sand bed always looks filthy. I try to do water changes right after blasting the sand and try to get stuff off the surface, but end up sucking up handfuls of sand. Any thoughts?
 
Yes, put a filter sock in your sump. Then, gravel vacuum your sandbed, but instead of collecting the water in a bucket, run the hose into the sock in your sump. Now you've vacuumed your gravel without a water change. I do this a few times between water changes.
 
Sawdonkey said:
Yes, put a filter sock in your sump. Then, gravel vacuum your sandbed, but instead of collecting the water in a bucket, run the hose into the sock in your sump. Now you've vacuumed your gravel without a water change. I do this a few times between water changes.
Click to expand...

Brilliant. I never thought of that. Do you turn off your return when doing this?
Thanks!
 
Hmm, what type of stuff are we talking about cyano, green algae, detritus, or all of the above. I know I had a similar problem with my 14g bio cube. I ended up adjusting my flow, cut down on coral feeding a bit (as phosphates were becoming a problem), and have a couple nassarius snails that sift the sand. I haven't had a problem since, it was mostly a flow problem I had and the tank only being 6 months old. Now it's 3 years old and I never need to blast the sand or siphon anything. Super clean sand bed and I am back to heavy feeding for corals.
I only blast live rock and when I do I do a small water change.

Just food for thought.... I also don't have a sump.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk
 
It was all of the above. I picked up a protein skimmer and a new filter (which has a surface skimmer and uv sterilization built in). Algae is all gone. I have a pretty solid load of snails and crabs, they just could keep up with the algae, now they only work on the sand bed. Plus, I took a media bag, looped the outside over the end of the vacuum, saves the the sand now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top