Getting rid of all the detrius on sandbed

I was wondering what you guys did to remove all the detrius from the bottom of your tank? do you guys just have powerheads low enough that it's blowing at the sand surface so the detrius is flying off the sandbed and getting sucked up by a HOB filter of some sort? or do you guys siphon it when you do water changes? People say snails eat detrius but I haven't really seen much of that, are there any specific snails that actually DO eat detrius or any other invertebrates?

 

hermit crabs will eat anything. I got about 15 of various sizes in a 55g. There are drawbacks to that, but I like them.

 

A good clean up crew will take care of the problem. And you are right about the flow, but it does not have to be that low. You don't want the sandbed disturbed that much. So I would ask you, how much flow do you have in your tank and what do have as a cleanup crew?

 

I was going to ask the very same questions pharmerjohn

 

my sand bed was very dirty at one point...a friend pointed me in the direction of a conch and some nassarius snails. Big big improvement!!!

 

Pharmr John about every 6 weeks just before i start a 20% water change I take a turkey baster and blow it next to glass to remove the brown stuff. I hve had no bad luck doing this. Corals seam to enjoy this as polips really extend.Fish go into hiding though. Is this a mistake?

 

I have read that you actually want to stir up your sandbed everyonce in a while. Dont go in there and dig around in it, but rake out a little at a time. Then a week or so later do the next part and so on.

I also when I do water change siphon out the gunk on my rocks and my sand bed. Any obvious bloom gets sucked out. Unfortunately I am still learning this technique as to not remove a ton of sand each time.

 

You could also vacuum small areas at each water change. You don't want to stir up too much at once.

 

I don't do anything to my sand bed. My power heads are set to the point where I can see some grains of sand ocassionally moving due to the flow. The spaghetti worms do the rest. My sand is full of them.

 

My black cucumber does a great job of turning the sand and eating detritus!