Does anyone siphon their sand?

[JT101]

I used to do it several years ago when I had an AquaPod AP24 and even did it a couple times when I got my 46g bowfront last May, but quite frankly it's a major PITA, AND I never noticed any benefit from it. In addition, in speaking with various LFS on the Island I find that very few of them do it.

Which leads me to how does an LFS keep their reef tanks SOOOO CLEAN??!! I mean, Mike at Tropical Island Aquarium has tanks so pristine you'd swear they were just set up the morning you stopped in. With so many tanks in the store I find it hard to believe that he's scraping, siphoning, dusting LR, etc in the wee hours of the night and morning before opening. It looks like they just stay clean all the time. How does he do it?

 

[MatthewScars]

They use chemicals? I dont see their sand all that clean. Always red/green algae when I go to any place. They swap in water and product so fast, its impossible to keep it clean - especially the fish.

Dont clean your sand. Good stuff lives in there. If you have algae, look up ways to reduce the nutrients in your tank. There are tons of threads on this if you use the search engine or google.

I would only take the LFS tanks or word at face value.

 

[NewfiDog]

It depends on how deep your sandbed is. 4 inches plus do not clean the sand bed. But as far as i know shallow sand bed needs to be cleaned.

 

[Tonyscoots84]

Get a great sand clean up crew n u should be good.

 

[prattreef]

It depends on how you set up your system. If you are using the sand bed consciously for de-nitrification (i.e." I run a deep sand bed to reduce nitrates" ) then do not stir your sand as you need to keep the deeper levels intact and oxygen poor. If the sand in your tank is merely for aesthetics/habitiat then it is a good idea ( not required and many folks don't) to stir the bed regularly in order to put detritus in suspension where it can be removed by your filter. Corals also love it as it provides a free meal of fine particles and bacteria. I don't think vacuuming is a good idea as that will pull out too many of the good critters etc.

What you don't want to do is stir a sandbed that hasn't been stirred in a long time as this may release pockets of hydrogen sulfide gas which is quite deadly. ( smells like rotten eggs).

 

[JT101]

Get a great sand clean up crew n u should be good.

I do agree with you that CUC will work, but the LFS I'm referring to has some reef tanks with NO CUC - at least I can never find any. It's all corals and fish.

 

[JT101]

It depends on how deep your sandbed is. 4 inches plus do not clean the sand bed. But as far as i know shallow sand bed needs to be cleaned.

My SB is only about 2-1/2" at its deepest so I guess I will need to go back to siphoning...

Thx for the info.

 

[JT101]

They use chemicals? I dont see their sand all that clean. Always red/green algae when I go to any place. They swap in water and product so fast, its impossible to keep it clean - especially the fish.

Dont clean your sand. Good stuff lives in there. If you have algae, look up ways to reduce the nutrients in your tank. There are tons of threads on this if you use the search engine or google.

I would only take the LFS tanks or word at face value.

Hi Matthew,

Thanks for the post. I'm not sure what you meant by the highlighted info above. The LFS in question here has never told me that they do NOT siphon - I just find it hard to believe that they have the time to do so..

 

[NewfiDog]

Proper CUC do good in many ways, most LFS dont have good CUC to buy.

 

[mbg75]

I used to do it several years ago when I had an AquaPod AP24 and even did it a couple times when I got my 46g bowfront last May, but quite frankly it's a major PITA, AND I never noticed any benefit from it. In addition, in speaking with various LFS on the Island I find that very few of them do it.

Which leads me to how does an LFS keep their reef tanks SOOOO CLEAN??!! I mean, Mike at Tropical Island Aquarium has tanks so pristine you'd swear they were just set up the morning you stopped in. With so many tanks in the store I find it hard to believe that he's scraping, siphoning, dusting LR, etc in the wee hours of the night and morning before opening. It looks like they just stay clean all the time. How does he do it?

If you run vortechs, with enough flow, the random patterns like NTM mode keep it pretty clean. An open rockscape helps.
I have 2 MP40's on my 75. Pretty open rock scape. Not much touching back glass. Since running them, Only detrius is pretty much in my fuge. When I turkey baste the rocks, not much comes off.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

 

[Tonyscoots84]

also remember the better lfs's will vacuum the sand and take out any of the ugliness and replace with new sand as well...

 

[JT101]

also remember the better lfs's will vacuum the sand and take out any of the ugliness and replace with new sand as well...

You know, now that I think about it, I'm comparing MY work day - leaving the house at 10AM and walking in the door at 7PM (I keep West Coast sales hours) to someone who takes care of tanks for a living. I guess in hindsight an LFS owner can find the time to keep his reef tanks pristine. I guess I just need to make a little more time to keep things in shape. Thank you for the reality check

 

[TRIGGERMAN]

Most lfs do not take good care of their stuff, they don't dip corals or clean much. You can't really take their word as scripture that's what matthew meant. Every store especially on LI wants to make it seem like they have the best healthiest corals and everyone else sucks but in truth they all suck in their own ways lol

Siphoning the sand bed is definitely helpful because all the crap that collects on the bottom produces nitrate/phosphate.