Clean my sand or not?

[Midway]

My lfs guys told me that i should clean my sand because i could be growing harmful bacteria and other bad stuff in there. Do you guys clean your sand or not? If you do why and if you don't why not?

Thanks for your inputs guys.

[ashr]

i have fish and other things that clean/shift my sand for me. i never clean it

[bignose]

You could vacuum the very top of the sand but otherwise leave it up to livestock. Depending on what's in your sand you could potentially crash your system.

[Snaz]

There are different bacteria that contribute to the breakdown of ammonia and nitrite and some of them are anaerobic and can only survive in an area of ZERO oxygen like a deep sandbed.

The display tanks without sand certainly have sumps that contain sand. You need that anaerobic environment.

So don't mess with your sand too much!

[Myka]

Don't disturb more than the top 1/2" of a sandbed. Deeper sand will have anaerobic areas, and if you disturb them they will get oxygen making them aerobic which will cause that bacteria to die which may cause an ammonia spike in your tank. Unhealthy anaerobic areas may contain hydrogen sulphide (sand looks black and stinks), which if released into your tank may cause the tank to crash.

Originally Posted by Snaz

The display tanks without sand certainly have sumps that contain sand. You need that anaerobic environment.

This is not true. Anaerobic bacteria also inhabit live rock, so anaerobic areas in sand are not needed. Very simply, anaerobic bacteria convert nitrate to nitrogen gas which off-gases from the tank.

[Snaz]

Originally Posted by Myka

Don't disturb more than the top 1/2" of a sandbed. Deeper sand will have anaerobic areas, and if you disturb them they will get oxygen making them aerobic which will cause that bacteria to die which may cause an ammonia spike in your tank. Unhealthy anaerobic areas may contain hydrogen sulphide (sand looks black and stinks), which if released into your tank may cause the tank to crash.



This is not true. Anaerobic bacteria also inhabit live rock, so anaerobic areas in sand are not needed. Very simply, anaerobic bacteria convert nitrate to nitrogen gas which off-gases from the tank.

Certainly LR contain anaerobes but it would have to be the larger pieces if were to contain any significant populations wouldn't you say? The fact that we practice to get lots of flow through the rock also hinders the chance of good anaerobes in medium or smaller pieces like that would be found in nano or medium sized tanks.

Really I just would not mess with a good deep sandbed in any way. If you disturb the anaerobes as you say you could have a spike or a crash and as you mention they are a nitrogen sink which as we know is always needed in a reef environment, another reason not to mess with them.

And in regards to the original post. Most LFS advice is BS with apologies to the people who work at an LFS and provide good advice... you are a rare breed.

[DanG]

Get a sand sifting goby, get a conch, get any of the critters that play in the sand. They're all quite fascinating to watch.

[mike31154]

My system is sumpless, so water changes are done by removing water from the display. I generally use the siphon to lightly surface vacuum areas that are relatively easy to access. In the corners & areas of low flow, I'll sink the tube down deep into it & a good deal of fine, cloudy, nasty stuff gets disturbed & sucked up. I'll also use the turkey baster to blow off areas of rock that accumulate pockets of sand & detritus. Sometimes I wonder why I haven't caused a mini crash when I do this, but I guess the fact that I'm siphoning most of the nasty stuff up & replacing almost half the water (large water changes infrequently) probably helps.

I should add that my system is a combination of two previously owned tanks & I used all of the original sand & some from the second tank. It was pretty nasty stuff since the tanks did not appear to have a lot of flow with the original owners. Over the past 4-5 years, the appearance of the sandbed has improved noticeably, nice & white these days for the most part. I attribute this to my little spot cleanings during water changes, but also to the increased flow & undertow that my VorTech MP40Ws provide. I've tried sand sifting livestock in the past, a starfish & even a horseshoe crab that came with the second tank I purchased. Both eventually died. My Maroon clownfish female will occasionally work on an area below the BTA the pair is calling home, sometimes fanning the bed right down to the glass. Depth of my sandbed varies with the deeper sections (about 4") at the ends in the corners. Around the middle of the tank, under the BTA rock, it's down to 2" or less, depending on what the female Maroon has been up to. As mentioned earlier, I usually poke the siphon deep in the corners, since that tends to be the low flow area which collects nasties, although with the MP40Ws, that's been less of an issue.

My experience & haven't caused a tank crash yet, sandbed is looking great. Might not work for someone else, it depends a lot on individual set ups, flow, age of sand, past maintenance, many other factors. Best advice I have is that if the surface of the sandbed is starting to look like it's collecting too much grunge, it's probably a good idea to lightly vacuum it. Then look at ways of perhaps increasing flow to keep the stuff suspended & prevent it from building up.