CC and sand

[mombostic]

I saw another very heated thread about water changes. A guy on there said he doesn't do water changes, and he has crushed coral. He said all he does is stir the coral with his finger and then let his filter pick it up. He said it worked, but that's just not how I chose to do it. I do the water changes anyway, so I vacuum at the same time. I guess it's a matter of personal taste. You might try it and watch your levels closely.

 

[jg303030]

How do you suck the cc area? I did my water change today. Usually I just suck the top stuff off, but tried it the way that was described here. However, when I got the syphon close to the cc it sucked it up and stopped the water flow. My water was all 0 except for nitrates they were around 10ppm, and ph was around 7.9-8-8.1 area. I hadn't done one in about 2 weeks. My LFS told me to do it 1 a month because I have so much live rock it also acts as a filter for amonia and nitrites. That's what I was told. I guess it is live and learn. Any other opinions?

 

[mombostic]

When I vacuum, the cc goes into the tube, but the water still moves through it. Then when I life it off of the cc, whats in the tubes slowly falls out. I just keep agitating it letting it fall back out.
To get underneath, I just lift of my power head and lift tube (I clean them anyway), take some tubing that I got from Lowe's, feed it through the hole, start the syphon and do the vacuuming under the UGF plate. This is more complicated, so I only do it once a month. By doing the rest of the cc weekly, it's not bad under there, anyway.
You may still want to change to sand. I just do what I do because I'm too overwhelmed by the change-over process, and I don't mind the maintenance involved. I think it's just a matter of personal preference.

 

[jg303030]

I don't care about the maitenance either. I just don't want to be doing it the wrong way. I don't have a UGF so I'm not sure if that makes a difference. I did a 10-15% water change yesterday. My nitrates went down to 0-5ppm from 10. Everthing else stayed 0, my ph went down a little. Everything seems to be doing fine. I definetly kicked up a lot of stuff moving the cc around.