Cleaning Ugly Sand

[Leah]

How deep is your sandbed? Yes I just use the hagen siphon's I think I got them from J&L.
Start slow, do not go overboard and time it with a water change

[Oscar]

Originally Posted by Leah

How deep is your sandbed?

Sandbed is about 2" deep. Yes, I will take it slow and make it part of my water change process from here on.

[Oscar]

I invested in a gravel siphon this week. Changed my carbon and GFO yesterday morning before siphoning.

My normal water change is 4G (13% of my water). The siphon drains water very quickly compared to how much sand is cleaned but this sure works. I filled one 4G tub yesterday and another 4G tub this morning but really did not clean much sand.

I checked for phosphates with my Elos test kit but still showing zero.

I noticed that last night my candy cane did not extend its polyps for the first time in months.

I would like to continue siphoning through the week but should I wait until the candy cane shows its polyps again as an indicator that the water has returned to normal?

I would wate a few adys (2-3) in between the siphonings to let things get back to normal.
Are you just siphoning one small part of your tank at a time, that is what I would do. If the siphon picks out alot of sand you can lift the siphon up off the sand and slow the flow a bit. This lets the heavy sand fall beck to the sand bed and will still clean it as the small particals will stay in the siphon. If you want to do a larger area of your sand you can, just plan on doing a larger water change your corals should respond quicker also.

Bill

[Oscar]

Originally Posted by bvlester

I would wate a few adys (2-3) in between the siphonings to let things get back to normal.

Bill

Bill: As many have said, good things happen slowly. So I will take your advice and siphon maybe twice a week. At this rate it will take me until Christmas to get through the first round of sand cleaning. Then it will become part of my usual water change regimen.

I am saying every 2-3 days to let your corals recover a bit in before going through it again or you can do the whole thing in 1 go this may stress them to much. as your tank is so small. you could upgrade your tank as a xmas gift to yourself and make the sand cleaning a part of the up grade. use your tank water to wash out the sand and then use a bit of new salt mix to rinse the sand before adding to the new tank. other things you can do is put everything a large tough toot and do a sand cleaning and rinse with new salt water mix. one other thing I didn't remember to let you know when you clean a new area you should give the area that you have already cleaned a once over.

After carfull thought I have changed my opinion as to what I would do. My self I would do the large tough toot idea or upgrade to a larger tank. It would take less time and way less work. As it seems that you are cleaning only a very small area. This way all you would have to do is siphon as regular maintenance.

I am giving you more options as we go.
Bill

[Oscar]

Actually my Christmas gift to myself is a new skimmer. In the new year I am planning on shifting into SPS for the first time. So cleaning the sand bed is the first of a process to bring my tank up to the task of supporting SPS.

No room around here for a bigger tank unless some of the furniture goes.

well then, do the large tough toot because you want to have the sand clean and the bacteria in it for a while before you start adding sps after you clean your sand you can use cycle to help promote the bacteria to grow and spred out. cycle is supose to have beneficial bacteria in it. just make sure you use saltwater to clean and rinse youor sand and all will be fine. This way you can get your sand clean fast and cleaner than with just siphoning. You will still have beneficial bacteria in it from your tank and it will be just like new you can also clean the glass where the algea is. It will take less than a day insted of 4 weeks or so.

Bill

Bill