Siphoning

Now that I have a skimmer on my tank I'm only doing water changes about once every 10 to 14 days. When I do that should I siphon my substrate as well?

 

NO! You'll only stir things up with negative results. Get you some Nassarius snails to help keep it stirred/clean

 

I've thought about that the other day when my tank was all clouded up by my YWG. How could syphoning be bad because it stirs things up, but my YWG not be bad for stirring things up?

FWIW the company who cleans out zero edge tank syphons the sandbed weekly. When I watch, they pull some nasty's out of it. They use a python tube, so only the dirt comes out and the sand stays behind. It's a more corse sand though.

For my personal tanks, I only syphone any top layer of detrius off the top of the sand (if any is even there).

 

I often siphon my finely crushed coral substrate when performing WC's.

NObody died, nobody got sick, etc.

 

is detrius poop? ha is that a dumb question? haha

i would imagine that siphoning the top layer wouldnt be bad because that is where most of the mucky muck is at. i only ask because i the sand kinda looks messy. lol like a brownish tint. is that algae or crud from my tank

 

Depends on how deep your sand is. If it's shallow it's not a big issue. If it's pretty deep, you can siphon the top layer.

The reason it's not an issue with a sand sifting goby is because they usually only take the top layer and they also don't do the entire tank at once in a short period of time like you would with a siphon tube.

The issue is when you get down into hydrogen sulfide pockets in the deeper sand beds.

 

The sand is probably an inch to one and a half inches in places. What do you think. Top layer should be OK to run a siphon in??

 

That's about what I'm using also.

Siphoning any of it sjhould be OK, It's not considered a DSB at 1.5 inches.

 

That depth should be fine to siphon.

 

Is the Deep Sand Bed?