Siphoning sand

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rupp3322

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jul 21, 2012
Messages
134
Location
WI
How often should the live sand be siphoned in my sw tank? Its 60 gallon hex so not as much surface area as a rectangular tank. And it clouds the water so much when ou do anything with the sand. I only have 4 fish in there at this point.
 
I never do it. If there's stuff I need to get out, like a pile of poop or something like that, I use airline hosing so I don't pull too much sand out... I'm pretty sure by siphoning the sand you are removing the beneficial bacteria, and also stirring up a lot of bad stuff that could cause an ammonia spike... My clean up crew and algae blenny do a good job of keeping the surface of the sand pretty clean. Maybe someone else can chime in...?
 
Thats what i was thinking also. Thanks for your opinion. I have a sand sifting goby and a sand snail that do pretty well stirring it up. I was just wondering what others thought.
 
If you have a DSB then you will want to leave it go for the most part but anything 5" or less I'd reccomend stirring and siphoning 10% of the bed every water change cause no matter how good of sifters you've got they will miss some stuff which over time will build up and become an issue and also make it even more difficult to clean the problem without causing massive spikes.. I'm personally shooting for a full vac on my sand bed every 3 months by doing a little bit here and there
 
Thanks for researching that. My sand bed is 3 inches deep.
 
If your going to syphon or sift it do it regularly if not then never do it. Don't wait long periods then do it on a whim. That's how you get a spike. Practice will get you the point that you don't make a mess or causing cloudy when doing it. Just control the flow by pinching the hose if that's the route u decide to go.
 
There are large compelling arguments on both sides of the fence. I have seen beautiful successful tanks that have take both routes for years.
 
To add more confusion, lol, I don't ever siphon my sand in any of my tanks. I find it just releases gunk and plays havoc with water parameters. If you have proper water circulation ten there shouldnt be anything on the sand bed as far as poop and leftover food. Nothing really settles on the sandbed in my tanks so no need to vacuum. :)
 
Carey.. What about swirling the water a bit right
above the surface of the sandbed to help suspend the stuff that does settle, and so it can get siphoned? Do you think that would wreak havoc on params too??
 
Benamayer said:
Carey.. What about swirling the water a bit right
above the surface of the sandbed to help suspend the stuff that does settle, and so it can get siphoned? Do you think that would wreak havoc on params too??

If you don't break the surface then you aren't introducing anything to the nitrification cycle that isn't already there. That being said most people will actually reccomend including myself to blow water over your rocks and substrate to do exactly that. Some times ill just take one of my circulation pumps and fan the tank a bit which real reefs experience very similar from storms which is vital to a healthy reef.
 
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