Do you clean your sand??

[SaltyinNJ]

I know that vaccuming the live sandbed is a no no, but my sand has a lot of unsightly debris on top of it that I am tempted to try to siphon off. Mostly rock debris and snail / hermit poop, etc.

 

Should I let it go or try to get rid of it somehow. What do others do? Let me know. Thanks.

[tinyreef]

i let it go. then again i let my room go too. hmmm

 

you may want to pick out the rock debris, i'm assuming they're little pebbles. if that's too much work then use a light current from a powerhead to blow the stuff to one side (like a leaf blower) then you can siphon the crud out with a baster or air hose.

[mysk]

I use brisle worms and brittle stars to clean my sandbed

[NaNO ReeFiN]

I leave my sandbed alone, the only time I ever touch it is ocassionally when I stir the sand up with a chopstick.

[Metznreef]

same here, i'm just gonna get some more hermits to turn it over and probably a pistol shrimp to turn it over.

[Guest LudavicoTechnique]

If you clean your sandbed too much, you will suck up little critters that are important to the tanks health.

[Dave ESPI]

once every 8 months I stirr 1/2 the sand. I use a Diatom filter to remove mulm..... it only chokes the sand bed once the nutritional bits are used, its pure wate. I dont like nitrates..... niether do my corals. the sand bed recovers well. I also add a few Fresh # every now and them to keep new life in it.

[Sahin]

My sand is pretty small sized so most things stay at the surface. Snail poop etc I just siphone out using the device I made (see pic in other post) and it doesnt disturb sand at all.

 

My tank is fairly new so I dont know what I will do long term about the sand.