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stirring sand ok or no-no?


scarf_ace1981

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scarf_ace1981

every once in a while i redocate the tank and i was wondering if i disrupt some sort of balance by stirring the sand up a bit.

 

let me just say it's like turkey basting the sand. i'm not putting a lid on the tank, flipping it upside down and shaking it like a margarita.

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Corbet_Jackson50

I know if you have a DSB over 4" it can be a big no no to disturb the deepest layer of the DSB, if you dont have a DSB and are stirring all the way to the bottom you should be in decent shape. if you arent disturbing a DSB you will be stirring up plenty of detritus and disolved organics just watch your skimmer take care of it. I would see what others have to say as well.

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I always stir the sand at the bottom because algae builds up on it. I dont have any problems with it hat i could see so far. I bought some Red Slime powder which gets rid of all of the algae and red stuff on your sand at the LFS. it works great, now i only stir sand about once a week.

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I don't purposefully go stirring my sand, but it deos get moved around a bit when rearranging rocks and doing WCs and I have never had a problem.

 

To MJD, have you tried to prevent the red algae from forming without using the Red SLime stuff? I think it is generally better to eliminate as much algae as possible by either reducing the amount of food given or increasing the clean up crew. I added about 8 various hermits and several snails and the hermits stir the sand and the snails take care of the algae.

 

Personally, I hate adding chemicals if I can avoid it. Just a thought.

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I dont stir my sand....I let my nassarius snails do it for me

 

My nassarius snails do a pretty good job too, but occasionally I have to help them. Just a light stirring in spots is all I do.

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Humm I stir and suck at the same time I attach a broken piece of a plastic spoon to the end of a hose and drain as I stir up the sand bed. I never thought about it being bad it looks so pretty when I'm done. Do you think I'm killing it?

 

Scat

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I vacuum mine (about ~1") every water change, which is weekly. I'd rather remove all the detritus than depend on cleanup crew. I left about 3" of room between the rocks and glass expressly for this purpose.

 

Alot of the junk gets up in suspension and my skimmer does the rest. I actually sort of think that most of what I stir up makes it to the skimmer rather than being removed with my siphon.

 

Since I started, my tank has been remarkably cleaner in terms of nuisance algae, and water params are more consistent -- very important in <20G of water.

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i also vacuum my sand and the corals love it. they get fed from the kicked up waste. no skimmer. but i clean my media out after it settle. i do it every other week and theres no build up on my sand at all.

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glad someone posted about this. I used do the turkey baster thing all the time but now try to limit it as much as possible. I also make an effort not to kick up too much crap at once when I do it.

 

After a major sandstorm a few weeks back I noticed my blenny ended up with a bunch little white parasites (flatworms?) on him. They went away after a couple days of the neon goby picking them off but he was pretty bummed out and I felt bad. I also read that it's particularly bad for clams to be exposed to too frequent sandstorms cause they can't "clear their throats" like mobile critters can. I got a little hitchiker squamosa from a piece of live rock that I don't want to risk hurting.

 

I have a 2 1/2" sb in a 12 gallon so I imagine it has something to do with the size of the tank you have. I've found if you toss in a bunch of hermits and resist the temptation to pull out the baster for a few days it will magically disappear. I'm sure it doesn't hurt to follow the previous advice of cutting back on the feeding too.

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I don't purposefully go stirring my sand, but it deos get moved around a bit when rearranging rocks and doing WCs and I have never had a problem.

 

To MJD, have you tried to prevent the red algae from forming without using the Red SLime stuff? I think it is generally better to eliminate as much algae as possible by either reducing the amount of food given or increasing the clean up crew. I added about 8 various hermits and several snails and the hermits stir the sand and the snails take care of the algae.

 

Personally, I hate adding chemicals if I can avoid it. Just a thought.

 

I have 15 blue leg hermits and about 25 snails in my 30g, but they dont do anything! I always have to stir the sand to prevent algae build up.

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My nassarius snails do a pretty good job too, but occasionally I have to help them. Just a light stirring in spots is all I do.

 

Same here. I've heard it's good every once and a while to create a "storm" in your tank. After all we are trying mimic nature right? I take my baster and blow stuff off the rocks and stir the sand up a bit. I do a water change right afterwards while everything is still floating in the water. I don't believe it's good to do this often though because it can disturb the little creatures in your live rocks. I think I do it once a month or every couple of months.

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I have a multipronged approach the sand bed maintance. Hermits, micro brittle stars, bristle worms, nassarius snails, and a small cave goby wich is apparently also a sand sifter. Sand bed stays fairly clean, I still blast the rocks clean untill I get a return manifold buit to provide better water movment. Between that and the macro in the fuge I have no fine hair alga, just a little light green fiberous alga and not much else. I do feed daily, change about 10% to 20% of the water about every two weeks, no skimmer yet in two years, but it all seems to be working.

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i create a "crap storm" using a turkey baster and use a magnum hot canister filter with the small micron filter for a couple of hours getting all the stuff out of the tank, then i do a water change. I run the filter again with the active carbon insert for a couple of hours. my water quality is awesome!!

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