Cleaning gravel bed

[Noodles]

Hi all, great forum and very helpfull, one thing I am stuck on is my gravel bed, I have a gravel bed of about 4-6 mm in size to a depth of about an inch, at the moment I am using a gravel vac to clean the gravel while I'm doing a water change. Although everything in my tank is flourishing am I doing more harm than good by cleaning the gravel in this way and secondly would I be better of with a sand bed instead?many thanks

 

[crister13]

Yes sand would be a better choice. With gravel, food and waste can get stuck in between the pieces. With sugar sized sand, the food and waste will be forced to stay on top of the bed and your cuc will get it or you can. Hope this helps

 

[Patrick93]

Yes sand would be a better choice. With gravel, food and waste can get stuck in between the pieces. With sugar sized sand, the food and waste will be forced to stay on top of the bed and your cuc will get it or you can. Hope this helps

I use crush coral in one of my tanks and never have issues

 

[Noodles]

Cheers for advice, how do I go about changing the gravel for sand have I got to strip the complete system?, is there any maintenance with sand( presume you can't vac it) or is it just cuc does the job?

 

[crister13]

I siphoned out the sand and also removed it with cups in 2 days. I did one half of the tank one day and the rest the next. I did a water change after every time I removed a half. Try to get all of the crap TE gravel kicks up when you remove it. I ten just poured 150 lbs of sand in without rinsing (it was too fine) and it cleared up in a day. Hope this helps! Gl