To vacuum or not to vacuum.....

[ohioreef]

I have decided to just leave the CC in my 35g tank. I am planning on getting a larger, 55-90 gal, tank later this summer.
I will set up the larger tank with the DSB and all that stuff I learned about after setting this one up.
In the meantime, should I vacuum the CC? If so, how often and how deep should I do that? How long after cycling should I wait? My tank has been up just about 4 weeks now.
Thanks. This board has been extremely helpful during my endeavor of starting a sw aquarium. Just wish I'd found it before I got it up and going. At least I'll know better for the next one.
Gary

 

[007]

Actually, I dont think that I would vacuum it out. A friend had a a CC set up that he never vacuumed because there were lots of life in the CC. I tell you one advantage of CC is that there are tons and tons and tons of pods in it once established.

 

[nm reef]

Thats one of the major cons of using CC...the need to vac. How often will depend on the stocking levels of your system...how much you feed...the amount of circulation...and the water chemistry of your system. CC will trap waste and un-eaten food that in time will adversely affect your water chemistry.If it were me I'd do a small percentage water change weekly and as I removed the old water I'd vac the CC as deep as possible to prevent build up in the CC. Lots of people use CC with success but I believe the key is to keep it clean of waste and ditrious.

 

[scirdan]

I do 2G water change every 2 weeks in my 30G tank, and I take that water by vacuuming the CC, I think I push in about 1 inch into my 2 inches of CC on average. My tank has been staying extremely stable and clean doing this (been up 5 months), I occasionally see some pods in the water I vacuumed out however (I try to net them and return them, not easy though)...

 

[boomper]

I also have CC in a 30 gal......if you keep a real shallow bed (mine is probably 1/2 in) then you reduce the risk of trapping nitrates and you make it easier to vacuum. I do mine every 3-4 weeks when I do a 25% water change. Have had no problems and real stable levels for close to 7 months now.

 

[jlem]

Originally posted by Boomper
if you keep a real shallow bed (mine is probably 1/2 in) then you reduce the risk of trapping nitrates and you make it easier to vacuum.
I'm not really sure if you trap nitrates in a deeper C/C bed. You probably trap more gunk which will eventualy be converted to nitrates. If a C/C bed is vacumed enough then you can remove some of the gunk before it even breaks down which is a good thing.

 

[ohioreef]

I guess my concern was that if I vacuumed it too often or too deep that I would actually be removing some of the beneficial bacteria. Is that a valid concern?

 

[scirdan]

Well you certainly dont want to vacuum all of the stuff from the cc, you want to keep that under control (so it doesnt get ugly and doesnt start to become a pollutant). My way of doing that is to limit myself to 2G of water on a water change, and I am only taking out 2G of volume, limiting the removal of good stuff from the cc. Like I said, I've had good luck so far..

 

[ohioreef]

Thanks for all the good replies. My other thought was to use a gravel cleaning attachment that attaches to my canister filter. That way I would return all the water back to the aquarium and hopefully any bacteria that may have been picked up.

 

[jlem]

The bacteria is in your rocks and attached to your C/C so you won't remove the bacteria from vacuming your C/C. It does not take much bacteria to perform the nitrgen cycle. Look at Bare bottum tanks that have just live rock. Pods also live throughout your rocks to so it would be near impossible to remove much of the pod life from regular vacuming. I would perform biweekly water changes and vacumm half of your C/C at a time.