Sand bed maintenance?

[Littorina]

Hello Mr. Thiel, I hope you are well!

     There's a current debate in on online SW group I just joined on whether to vacuum a sand bed or not (a regular sand bed; not a deep sand bed).  Some say leave it alone - your clean up crew does the job.  Others are saying, yes, clean the sand regularly to remove excess detritus to avoid nitrates....

I just assumed you DID vacuum a sand bed, as I saw someone doing just that on a youtube video on SW tank maintenance.   Just wondered what your opinon/experience was on that.

[albertthiel]

Hello Mr. Thiel, I hope you are well!

     There's a current debate in on online SW group I just joined on whether to vacuum a sand bed or not (a regular sand bed; not a deep sand bed).  Some say leave it alone - your clean up crew does the job.  Others are saying, yes, clean the sand regularly to remove excess detritus to avoid nitrates....

I just assumed you DID vacuum a sand bed, as I saw someone doing just that on a youtube video on SW tank maintenance.   Just wondered what your opinon/experience was on that.

Yes opinions vary indeed ... a Lot ....

My suggestion is that if you have a good clean up crew in the tank you will probably not have to do it more than maybe once every 4 or 5 m months but you need to do a portion at a time not the whole sand bed so you do not disturb the bacterial colony.

So you could do ⅓ say in month X and then another ⅓ the next month, and the last ⅓ the following month.

Now if you do not have a good clean up crew and you have a lot of detritus accumulating then cleaning a ⅓ after maybe 1 month, then another ⅓ the next month etc ...

Albert