Tip for vacuuming sand.

[aussiereefer82]

Heres a tip for those of us who vacuum our sand regulary but want to reuse the water. When you vacuum place a old colinder or strainer over the bucket and line it with fine filter floss. As the water goes through all the crap will be caught in the floss and you will have clean water in the bucket. This saves waiting for the crap to settle and you put the water back in the tank immediatley.

I vacuum my sand tmice a week but only do biweekly water changes.

[gregt]

Good tip. I use a filter sock.

[keqwow]

Just curious, but why do you vacuum your sand? I thought it was best to leave the sand alone as it builds up algae that is good for the overall system, where as when you start to vacuum the same it throws all sorts of junk into the water and messes up the natural system.....Am I wrong???

[gregt]

Well, actually, I'm vacuuming the detritus from my bare bottom tank, not really the sand.

[Cosine]

If you have a shallow sand bed like an inch or less then it is there for looks/the benefit of a critter or two like a goby or some other sandsifter. So vacuuming this will be to get the detritus out like gregt is doing in his BB. You can vacuum since it is not being used as a system to process nitrates.
As I understand you want to let a DSB sit and do its thing.
These are my thoughts/understandings anyways

[SPC]

Originally Posted by keqwow

Just curious, but why do you vacuum your sand? I thought it was best to leave the sand alone as it builds up algae that is good for the overall system, where as when you start to vacuum the same it throws all sorts of junk into the water and messes up the natural system.....Am I wrong???

No, you are right in referrence to a DSB (4" minumum sugar fine sand).

Steve

[reefkpr391]

Si if I am vacuuming my DSB more than an inch below the surface, am I disrupting the system for what it's intended for? And if not vacuum, how do I get the algea and crap from the surface?

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by reefkpr391

So if I am vacuuming my DSB more than an inch below the surface, am I disrupting the system for what it's intended for?

yup.

Originally Posted by reefkpr391

...and if not vacuum, how do I get the algea and crap from the surface?

If you have cyano, hair algae, etc. on the surface of the sandbed, carefully siphon just the surface to capture and remove the algae.[/i] This will not only remove te mess, but will export that same biomass out of the system, exporting the nutrient load that the algae has absorbed into it's cellular biomass.

Gravel siphoning in systems with shallow sandbeds is a must, but these same systemsUSUALLY will have larger granule size substrates as opposed to sugar-sized Aragonite substrates. Although having the larger substrate grnule size will make the substrate a better capture site (not necessarily good to have detrital capture there), the size makes siphoning much more effective with less loss of substrate. YMMV...

HTH

[reefkpr391]

Yup helps a great deal, since I was siphoning well below the surface, more so lately trying to get my tanks in better shape after neglecting them for awhile, but maybe have made matters worse..hmmmm

Okay, Thanks Tom....

Trying to figure out what YMMV is though...

[tdwyatt]

"Yer Milage May Vary..."

[keqwow]

So if I don't want to have to go through the process of vacuuming my sand, I want to have a fine grain sand bed at least 4" deep??

[reefkpr391]

Originally Posted by tdwyatt

"Yer Milage May Vary..."

Ah....ok, thanks.

[maprik]

So if I don't want to have to go through the process of vacuuming my sand, I want to have a fine grain sand bed at least 4" deep??
__________________________________________________ ___________

Having a 4" deep sand bed aids in the processing of nitrates. I use a 4" aragonite sand bed and live rock and I don't need a skimmer or any other artificial filtering/bioprocessing equipment. This does not mean that you won't have algae or cyanobacteria growing on your sandbed. That's a water quality issue and has nothing to do with the depth of your sand. In my experience it's best to leave your sandbed alone.

[SPC]

Originally Posted by keqwow

So if I don't want to have to go through the process of vacuuming my sand, I want to have a fine grain sand bed at least 4" deep??

Well thats the theory anyway, but there are other factors that have to be taken into consideration too. If you are going to use a sugar fine sand as the substrate (and this is what is recommended by the DSB experts), then the experts also say:

1. Activate your sand bed with a critter starter kit from one or more vendors, or get sand from an already thriving reef tank(s) DSB (Note: this is not the live sand in a bag like you might see at your LFS).

2. Remove a sample or two of your sand every couple of months and place under a microscope in order to determine if the correct species, as well as numbers of critters are present. If you determine that your sand bed is indeed lacking in critters, then purchase another kit or two, etc...

3. Never disturb the sand bed, including the detritus on top as this is what will feed the critters.

Now keep in mind that the DSB in your reef tank will act just like a low flow, high organic DSB will in nature (unless my friend Tom can show differently ). After a period of time (determined by different variables) the sand bed will stop processing organics efficiently and begin to leak them back into the system. So in summary, a DSB is a wonderful way to process organics if one realizes that they have a life span.

Steve

[keqwow]

So how often do you want to vacuum a shallow sand bed? or do you just try to leave that alone as well (unless there is obvious large gunk that needs to be vacuumed off)???