vacuuming sand?

huckleberry

huckleberry

Member
hey, i have a question...
when i change my fish water i vaccum the tank with a vacuum tube kind of thing...
but, i was wondering, what should i do about the sand, when ever i get close to it , or close to the bottm of the sand, i start sucking some up...
also, what should i do about the vacuuming the rocks... what i usally do is just kind of "wave my hand around" to create a stream to "blow" the dirt or excess waste off of my rock... anyone have any suggestins?
how in the hell do you spell vacuum anyway? is it one "c" and two "u"s or is it two c's and two u's...
anyway, any suggestions, help would be very appreicated
thansk
 
huckleberry

huckleberry

Member
then how do you get the junk off of the botom of your tank (waste material, etc)...
what do you do? just take out water?
 
crazy4reefs

crazy4reefs

Member
when i do a water change i just take out the water and replace it i do not vacuum the rocks or the sand bed.. your clean up crew should take care of the sand bed.. also i use a turkey baster to get the sand and junk off the rocks.. hth:)
 
T

thomas712

Guest
Hey Huck, it's me Tom got some Ideas for ya!
First off, they are correct about not vaccuming the sand, you just don't want to due that. The sand bed creates layers, at the top layer you will have some oxygen and lots of critters, worms, pods, and then at the bottom of a sand bed you will have and anerobic area or no oxygen and a different type of bacteria for proccessing wastes. If you ever decide to break into that or vaccum it you may very well release a nutrient rich, bomb that you would not like to happen.
So basic maintainence your asking. Like crazy4reefs said use a turkey baster on the rocks maybe once a month and let the cleanup crew do the rest.
If you are winding up with piles of stuff you feel need to be vaccumed out then perhaps we should examine your turn over rate. You may need some more powerheads to help keep the waste in suspention to be removed by your mechanical filtration or protien skimmer. Perhaps you may be feeding to much.
Just some thoughts
Now can we go play pirates
Thomas
 
huckleberry

huckleberry

Member
well cool, thanks for your help... then i have been doing it right...
it is just so different than fresh water where i was acutally vaccuming up the dirt.. sticking the hose into the gravel and sucking up stuff.. so, it just looked so wrong.. so, i came here for some advice.. my rocks dont' look dirty and i don't find "piles" on them, but if i move my hand in front of them very fast, i can see "dirt" or "dust" come off of them...
thanks again for your advice...
huckleberry fin ... :cool:
 
sundance

sundance

Member
So ...What kind of cleaning crew should one have for a 80 gal reef. I have 5 turbo snails, 5 or 6 of some smaller type, 5 or 6 small hermits and one big sucker (2 or 3 cm).
 
dzones

dzones

Member
I was told one cleaner per gallon of water roughly. I have a 125 and i have about 100-120 cleaners...mostly snails, blue legs, got a couple emerald crabs, cleaner shrimps, sally litefoot, queen conch, orange linkia star and a bristle star.
 
T

thomas712

Guest

Originally posted by nurjrk
I thought it was one cleaner per lb of LR
No, standard sales tactics are one snail per gallon, same with hermits almost. Not necessary in my opinion, if you were to go by the one per gallon rule then you would eventually wind up with starving clean up crews and empty shells. My rule is about half what the standard is or 1 per 2 or 3 gallons suggested, then you can suppliment these as needed or as the tank demands.
Thomas
 
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