How do you all keep your substrate so clean?

[Guest AbSoluTc]

test

[printerdown01]

ok, there is nothing in this post, but let's start it again anyway... What does everyone out there do to keep their sand white?

-hermits are my primary grubbers I guess

-right before I do a water change I make a "storm" in my tank

[NanoReefer53]

nuthin like some good ol strombus snails to go in and out of the sand. my new blue devil damsels also sift through sand too.

[Sahin]

Printerdown01:

Stormin the tank is a very good idea.

 

I will be utilising this idea at my next water change.

Thanks.

[C2187]

If you guys are keeping deep sand beds stirring them is the last thing you should be doing.  

[NanoReefer53]

it feeds the corals =D

[mxpro32]

that does sound like a good idea stirring up the substrate before a water change.  are there any negatives to doing that?  how about siphoning the substrate?

[SBGRAD24]

It's not a good idea to disturb your sand bed, definitely do not vacuum it. It's probably ok to kick up a little of the crud before you do a water change and siphon it out that way, but anything more could be detrimental to your LS

[C2187]

Stirring your sand bed is the last thing you should be doing. Siphoning is probably a worse idea. When you siphon your sand bed you remove so many beneficial organisms. You also add so much oxygen into the sand preventing any denitrification from taking place.

Do not stir or siphon your sand bed. The worms and snails will do it for you.

[Christopher Marks]

I guess I don't understand what you mean by keeping the substrate 'clean'?  Do you mean free of algae, or just nice and white?

 

My sandbeds are clean, but not white.  I have a few hermit crabs that pick up any extra food or algae that might grow on it.

[Cam barr]

i think just clean i judt kinda brush the sop judt a lil tust so i turn the kinda dusty white brown ish sand in to the sand

cam

[C2187]

Sorry Cam barr I have no idea what you just wrote.

[Sahin]

I dont understand what he wrote either

[BustytheSnowMaam]

LOL- what were you drinking Cam?

[NanoReefer53]

there's nothing wrong with stirring the sand around at the surface. The really benificial bacteria are the anerobic ones at the bottom that covert wastes to nitrogen. That crap feeds corals too. I wouldn't be doing this if Wayne Shang didn't tell me to

 

Don't know who Wayne Shang is ?

http://www.underseadiscovery.com/

[C2187]

If your sand bed is healthy you shouldn't have to do anything to it. The organisms living in it will do it for you.

[quiksilver5768]

Sorry it took so long for me to get back to the post. I dont know what happened to my main post but somehow its gone...

 

Hey Chris, by "clean" I mean both clean and nice and white. I have seen so many nanos and large reefs which have been setup for over 2 years and still have nice and white clean sand beds. My sand always gets a little brown and doesnt look very good after a while....

 

Any suggestions from some people who have been succesful in keeping a sand bed white and clean over a period of time? Thanks for all the replies...

[joh]

Dunno about everyone else, but I didn't do too much, just make sure that my sand serface does move a bit by current itself. Basically I just try not to have any death spot in my tank especially on the sand serface so no food would just stop there and not moving...

 

this isn't hard too, but take time adjust your power head so current isn't bad for coral and still moving sand a bit (see that grain of sand a bit jiggle, not really move and not see snail or hermit's poop stay in one spot for too long). This won't make your tank cloudy as well, ... i dunno why but my tank is crystal clear and sand still white as when I first put it in (about 4 months old now)