Weekly water changes

[Melissajk]

I have a quick question. I have a 50 gallon rimless cube with a sump. I do weekly water changes and vacuum my sand each week. I usually do 8 to 10 gallon wc.
My question is: should I vacuum the sand every week. I was wondering if I'm talking to much of good stuff out.

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[54seaweed]

If you have proper circulation you should have no need to vacuum the sand

[Bectan01]

I would never vacuum the sand bed in a salt water tank, just leave it be...

[Melissajk]

I was getting high nitrates, so I started vacuuming the sand and it came down, also I feed my fish less food.

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[Bectan01]

I am not an expert but I am sure there is a scientific reason why you shouldn't disturb the sand bed in salt tanks, something to do with potentially releasing harmful gasses? Perhaps someone can clarify that or explain it properly?


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[Masoniac]

I do believe releasing harmful gasses is with a deep sand bed.

[BigRedsReefs10]

Originally Posted by Masoniac

I do believe releasing harmful gasses is with a deep sand bed.

It is. Op IMO if you do it frequently it probably won't be a problem but as stated earlier it really shouldn't be necessary if you have proper flow. I personally never do it, but if done frequently I doubt there would be many trapped nutrients to be released into the water column.


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[gleach]

In a dsb there is the potential of releasing hydrogenated sulfate into the water colum upon disturbing the sand bed. Your in luck I've been researching this a lot. I decided to do a dsb in my main display. I also originally had a 2 in sugar fine sand bed once a week during my routine water change I would siphon off detritus being sure not to get to deep into the sand bed because there is good bacteria and micro fauna you want to keep alive. Ultimately I decided I didn't want to has the with siphoning my sand bed anymore so I started researching the dsb. I will say there is a lot of things that need to be taken into account for this method but ultimately the benighted should pay off. I can say that when my sand bed was only 2 inches I was having 10 to 20 ppm on my nitrate tests until I started siphoning of detritus my nitrates went to 0 to 5 ppm. After I added Chaeto and a better sump refugium my nitrates went to 0 and have remained 0ppm. I do have 1in of mud with 1in of sand over the top but nitrates have remained at 0ppm for months.

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