Cleaning Sand Bed

Should the sand bed be sifted every so often for cleaning purposes? The bottom of my breeder seems quite dirty with fish feces.

 

You should vacuum your sand when you do your water changes. You really don't want wastes to build up like that in your tank or you may run into nitrate issues.

 

Thanks for the info. Just before, I assume? What have you found to work best? I have the standard cylinder siphon, but saw one with a wide flat mouth on it that may work better.

 

I've found that if you have fine sand, the vacuums tend to just suck it up. Plus, they are larger and harder to get into tight spaces. What I do is when I do a water changes, I siphon the top layer of sand off in places it needs it. I also take a turkey baster and blow my rocks off to siphon out that gunk.

What is your clean up crew like? Have you thought about adding some hermits? They do a great job eating detritus.

 

CUC approx. rundown:
8 Turbos
6 Bluelegs
6 Redlegs
1 Sea Hare
4 Peppermint Shrimp
4 Fuzzy Chiton
2 Nerite Snails

When cleaning, are you moving the rocks and such?

 

If you dont siphon your sand bed it will accumulate waste even with the best of CUC and current makers. Like posted above I would siphon sandbed every water change. If you prolong the time between cleaning the sand bed you risk leaching gases and decomposed waste into the water column when you do eventually clean the bed. for these reason this also why having a DSB in your DT can lead to issues down the road.

 

You CUC isn't bad, I would just try the above mentioned and see how that does.

 

I have a fine sand bed. I actually take the cylinder off and just use the tube. It is easier for me to get the gunk out without waiting for the sand to fall back out of the cylinder. Plus, it is a lot easier to get into and behind my rockwork that is touching or very close to the glass. I might lose about a toddler's handful of sand per water change. Good luck.

 

definetly get a GOBY!!!! they are kind of like a mini siphon always working!!!! And a big attention getter in the tank... very cool to watch!

 

I had 2 in this particular tank. Diamond Goby's to be exact. Both jumped out the rear of the tank.