jawfish - a hassle or worth it??

agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
i have two inches or crushed coral and one inch of live sand on top of it. the crushed coral is starting to turn yellow - would a jawfish take care of this problem?
i saw one in my local lfs moving rocks like crazy and wondered if he'd eventually move them back and actually "sift" the sand or if it might just be too much of a hassle to get one. i don't want to constantly have to be moving rocks back and forth.
 
agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
its a bit late now... theres no way i can get the crushed coral out... i would have to rip the whol tank apart... and i dont know if tahts really worth it. plus i would end up losing most of my sand... and then i would have to buy more... i spent alot as it was..... is there anything i can do instead.... wouldnt a sand sifter help?
 
agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
with the same vaccum i use to take the water out? is it really strong enough.. i never put down by the sand as i dont want to suck anything out. if i do that though ill suck up all of my life sand and have to put more down.
 
smarls

smarls

Member
If you have CC then you need to vacuum it...there is really no way around this. Every water change I do, I vacuum the CC. I have no idea how you are removing any of the detritus if you don't get the syphon down into the CC?
If you are not doing cleaning the CC, what happens is all the detritus collects, and at some point, it is going to really affect your water quality...in a very bad way.
The other thing I do, is that every time I have my hand in the tank for whatever reason, I stir up the CC to release the detritus into the water. From there, my circulation keeps a lot of it in the water column, and my skimmer gets a chance to get rid of it (also the corals eat some of it).
Whatever you choose to do is fine, but start vacuuming your CC. CC does not create "live sand" as the particle size is wrong. Basically, your CC is dead, and it is acting like a big sponge...you need to clean that sponge...ASAP.
 
smarls

smarls

Member
Also, you do not just vaccuum it with s hose...there are "tools" made specifically to vacuum your CC...go to your LFS and buy one, they are under $20.00.
The tools syphons through the CC, but does not remove the CC, only the detritus trapped in the CC. It is really easy to do.
 
agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
well i have cc, but the cc is under the live sand.. and i dont vaccum the sand because i dont want to lose any of it. the only place my cc seems to be turning yellow is by the bottom edges of the glass under the live sand. my clean up crew does a pretty decent job... i mean theres still some stuff on the bottom... but they are still working on it. i have a big long vaccum... i thought it was just for taking the water out. i dont know if i could syphon the cc out or not. so is that why my cc is turning a yellowish brown fromt he ditrious?
 
smarls

smarls

Member
In order for the "live sand" to actually be "live" you need several inches of the live sand...I think about 4 to 6 inches...just sand, not CC.
The CC base does not count as live sand, again, it is the wrong particle size etc. As such, I really doubt as to whether your "live sand" is live.
Sounds to me (and some specific details from you would help) like you have a shallow sand bed, half sand, half CC. This is not live, and this needs vacuuming.
hth.
 
clarkiiclo

clarkiiclo

Active Member
No need to buy some special syphon, just buy a few feet of 1/2 or 3/4 tube from your LFS. Mine cost about 3.00. It will siphon alot faster and just control it with your thumb.
Only suck out as much as you can get with your regular waterchange.
Works great and it will be worth it.
 
smarls

smarls

Member
Agouti,
I understand what live sand is, although I am not certain that you have fully grasped the concept of "live sand bed".
What I am trying to explain is that for live sand to have the beneficial effects of being "live", then you need 4-6 inches of sand without a CC base. If you have a CC base, and then you have an inch or two of LS on top of it, you do not really have "live sand" in a DSB sense of the term.
So basically unless there is a 4-6 inch base of sand there is not enough depth to create the dentrification properties of a DSB, and your sand is not "alive".
Your sand and CC base may have life in it (my CC only base has life in it), but it is also accumulating detritus that it is not properly processing. As such, you we see the water parameters in your tank slowly go haywire, and things will start to suffer.
Perhaps you would be better served by starting a new thread on the reef board to get this live vs. non-live question answered to your satisfaction. If you do a search of Steve Weasts 800 gallon tank, you will see he has a 1-2 inch "live sand" bed, that he has to vacuum every week or so.
Basically, unless it is 4-6 inches of just sand (no CC) then you need to vacuum it.
 
agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
so if i have 4 to 6 inches of sand... i never need to vaccum it? the live sand my lfs sells is pretty expensive for me to buy 4 to 6 inches worth... is there anything else i can put in there that would be acceptable live sand? if that makes sense. also what is DSB, and what is the purpose of it?
 
agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
im quite pissed that the cc is this big of a deal.. my guy at the fish store is pretty knowledgeable too, im surpised he told me to do this.
 
clarkiiclo

clarkiiclo

Active Member
Alot of LFS do that. Mine did. I ended up taking the CC out. The tank is much better off now.
Anything your LFS tells you I would double check with at least 10 people here to see if is true or not.
 
agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
its almost such a huge process of taking it out.. i realy dont even know if im going to... but if i did... does it ALL have to be removed... or can some of it stay mixed in with the sand?
 
clarkiiclo

clarkiiclo

Active Member
Well I left maybe a handful.
Do you have a pic of your tank?
when you remove it you dont want to take it all out at once because that will cause you too much stress.
 
agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
i have a pic of my tank... but nothing of the substrate upclose. and what should i do with the cc? just throw it out? that is what i keep as a bed for my qt tank... its only maybe half an inch.. just enough to make it so its not a mirroed bottom... i only keep two damsels in there and a turbo snail... is that arlight to keep in the qt tank?
 
smarls

smarls

Member
As long as you siphon the sand bed in the QT tank, then that would be fine. Otherwise, you will have problems.
Just so you know, poeple (myself included) use CC. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't, but that is what my LFS said to do...so I did. CC requires maintence, and I dont think it looks as good, but it is manageable...but you do need to vacuum it on a regular basis...no two ways around it.
Th DSB (Deep Sand Bed) is basically "self-cleaning" after it establishes the required life. But some people have had their DSB crash after a few years....so there is no absolute. (well, no absolute except, vacuum your CC bed or else you will ahve big probelms - that is an absolute!)
HTH
Stewart
 
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