Vacuuming Sandbed

globaldesigns · #1 01-25-2013, 10:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiverDude

It goes well enough !

I've been hearing a lot of people say they vacuum their sand lately. This came as a bit of a surprise since I'd imagine the the standard gravel siphon would suck sand right out of the tank with the water...

Do you just suck a little off the top or right to the bottom and what do you use to do it ? Has it made any difference to the overall health of the tank ?

I have a hose clamp that restricts flow, and I will bend the hose slightly while vacumning to slow down things further if needed.

I hold the valumn at a 45 degree angle, I find it cyclones the sand in the tube better, cleaning better, while not sucking out too much sand. You will always suck a bit out.

You should see how dirty the water taken out is, very black... over time with weekly cleaning, the water removed becomes tan in color.

csnow · #2 01-25-2013, 10:24 PM

I vacuum about 1/4 of my bed with each water change. I installed a PVC valve in my gravel vacuum hose and I can use the valve to keep the flow at the right amount to get the black junk but no sand.

I have always done this so no experience with whether it actually makes a difference. I get a lot of gross looking stuff out though so it must do something.

lastlight · #3 01-25-2013, 10:47 PM

i vacuum wherever there's room to. i remove a lot of the fines and i'm guessing over time the ratio of debris to fines will shift as the fines are depleted.

i dig in all the way to the bottom and make sure any gasses in the sand get sucked up then let the sand settle back down where it came from and move to a new spot. my sand bed is maybe 1" deep on average.

badfish! · #4 01-26-2013, 12:53 AM

I used to, but I have a burrowing fish and he seems to do a really good job of keeping the sand stirred up, but I shifted the sand around in the tank (another fish had been trying to build some kind of a burrow, and heaped the sand in an akward spot), and there wasn't really that much gunk that came out of the sand. From when I first started the tank I vacuumed every water change, and I havent really noticed a change from when I stopped, just extra work.