water change

[mbettman]

Should I be cleaning the sand as well as getting rid of the water or is that getting rid of the live stuff in the sand?

[DarinSchmidt]

it doesnt hurt to clean the sand. i clean mine every other month. it will get rid of some live bacteria and wht not but it will repopogate within a few days, if that.

[Wall_Tank]

How deep is your sand?

If you decide to clean your sand, clean it regularly.  I would probably clean half of the tank at a time.

[mbettman]

Thanks Darin.

[Todd W.]

I read in one article that if your sand is deeper than normal only to clean the top layer as disturbing the lower layer would cause the bacteria to be disturbed.

Again not sure where I read that...

[mbettman]

So do you move all your rocks around or just clean around them?

[Todd W.]

I never moved my rocks... too much work 

[The WuSue]

+1

You can clean the sand with every water change if you want (if you're on a two week schedule) but it isn't necessary. Some folks like to keep the sand a bit cleaner looking and that's fine (the sand under the rocks and the rocks themselves will have plenty of bacteria and other crawlies to repopulate it in no time). The major benefit of a sand bed (besides aesthetic reasons) is that it helps to level out the important elements of the water (alk, calc, mag etc) but the down side is that it can store huge amounts of the things that can cause problems (nutrients, phosphates, silicates) if left uncleaned over time. This is the argument that all the bare bottom tank folks make, but if you look at the amount of two part solutions or dosers they have to run to keep the tank in check it's higher than those who have a sand bed... Hope that helped.

[mbettman]

That all helps. Dont move the rocks and clean the sand if I want to.

[DarinSchmidt]

Yeah and when you say clean the sand you just mean the surface of it right? what i also do before i clean the sane is get a turky baster (sometimes i do this) and gently blo some water around the rocks to help get out some food thats decaying. You'll be surprised what you find sometimes.

[mbettman]

well my experience was with fresh water so I am used to getting down and deep in the substrate to get the dirt out. Are you saying just surface clean?

[DarinSchmidt]

Thats what i do, sometimes i may go about 1/2" deep, but its not really neccissary as with saltwater you usually have finer sand/bed base as with freshwater people tend to have more of a pea gravel type base which is where big chunks of gunk can get caught. which you want to get out of there. Plus with freshwater you dont have all the little critters in there that help clean up like you do in saltwater. Food usually doesnt last too long in a saltwater system.

[HUNGER]

ur supposed to clean the sand every time u do a water change but only the top layer and in a small part of the sand and rotate to a differnt spot of sand next time u do a water change 
i never cleaned the sand in my tank in 6 years 

[mbettman]

Water change done. There must be an easier way than hauling 5 gallon buckets.

[HUNGER]

ya a pump and a hose 

[The WuSue]

Or just fill the buckets halfway and do more trips lol. My Father's tank is plumbed into a drain line he had set up before the tank was moved in. All he does is mix salt, and alternate plugging in pumps (I'm a little jealous, so that's part of the reason for the new set up).