sandbed/algae/nano issues - take your pick.

[ReefGrrl]

I have a dymax 1.6gallon pico with a 1" deep sand bed, no fish, one turbo snail, 6 million weensie bristleworms (I might be exaggerating, maybe it's only 5 million), green star polyps, a couple different types of mushrooms, a tiny Kenya tree, some khaki coloured palys and a rescue gorgonian that I'm nursing along. And lots of irritatingly busy pods running around all over the place.

I use my baster to vacuum the sand bed when I do water changes. I change about 30% of the water every 4 or 5 days, and I pull out the old water by squeezing the baster bulb before putting it down into the water, then inserting the tip as deep as I can into the sand bed and letting go of the bulb. Some of the sand gets drawn up into the baster but I can control it by reducing the speed of the suction.

The amount of grunge that gets drawn up is unbelievable. When the bulb is fully inflated and won't draw any more, I lift the tip out of the sand, leaving it close to the surface of the sand, and gently pulse it to get the sand out of the baster tube. Then it's just a matter of pulling the baster out and decanting the water into a cup. I move the vacuum spots around, trying to stay close to the rocks and get under them a bit.

This works really well for me, and I have never had any issues with the sand bed in this tank. Algae control is perfect with the single turbo snail.