Vacuuming

Just a question, I was wondering how you all go about vacuuming your coral sand ...... Without vacuuming it up at the same time.?

 

The trick withthe sand is to stay higher thatn you would normally.
Very fine sand is tough, but stay 1 - 2" above the sand and it should work.

 

i would siphon mine buy sucking it up half way in the tube, then pluging the end with my finger. the sand will then fall back down and the detritus will linger in the tube a little longer. i then lift the tube up a lil bit off the sand remove my finger and suck up the brown floating stuff in the tube. repeat this through the tank

 

You must have a small tank because that sounds time consuming.

If its fine sand do it a little above the sandbed and it helps to bend the tube in the hand outside the water to slow down the suction. This will keep you from sucking down buckets of sand while trying to remove the detritus. It also helps to use a smaller diameter tube because it will have as strong of suction powers.

 

it just takes some getting used to the timing. its not much longer then regular siphoning i used to do it on a 90. but now im barebottom now more sand for me. i dont miss it at all either. if your not doing your tank as a display tank i urge you to switch to barebottom its great.

 

I don't vacuum. I have pretty good flow and I don't overfeed, so I think in my case it would be more of a detriment.

 

Nowadays, especially with reef tanks, I don't think sand vacuuming is used much. However with Fish only tanks on fairly large granular substrate you have many options. But the simplest would be to use a siphon hooked to a wide mouthed tube (sold in petstores) when you change water.

 

after so many years with out good mantianence and cleaning sand becomes a nutrient pit and must be replaced.

 

Don't vacuum it will destroy the biological filtration in the sand

J