Gravel vacuuming

[dmbfreek]

How many of you gravel vac while doing water changes? I do not do gravel vacs because I have very fine sand that just gets sucked up. I'm wondering if this is why I'm having ammonia problems?

 

[Krish]

How deep is your sand bed? When I had sand, I use to vaccum the sandbed (shallow sand bed) at every water change. I use to use a small hose so it didn't suck up much sand. The smaller hoses won't suck water as fast as a larger diameter hose would. As for the ammonia though, how long has this tank been up and running now because if it has already gone through the inital cycle, you really shouldn't be reading any ammonia How long now??

 

[Scooterman]

I agree with Krish you probably have a tank loaded more that can be bio-processed. What size tank do you have & what is in it?

 

[dmbfreek]

70G and a 20g sump. There is a med lion and a med eel in there. The tank has been set up since Oct. I feed frozen krill about 4 times per week and do 10g water changes per week.

 

[Scooterman]

How much LR do you have? Really doesn't sound that bad, either like not enough LR, or maybe skimming? You got to remove excess Detritus, these fish Poops Big, so removing that before it becomes a problem & starts breaking down will benefit you greatly, suck that lightly off the sand, having to add a little sand every six months or so isn't so bad, also get a ph & blow off the rocks when cleaning, use a sock on the drain in the sump to catch up the storm then remove it when it clears up. If you still have ammonia problems, try & do a couple 20 or 25g wc's, make them big.

 

[dmbfreek]

there is probably 75 lbs or so in there now. I started a thread a couple weeks back called "what's the dumbest thing that you've done" that can probably be the factor here. Basicly, I pulled out about 80% of the LR when I introduced the lion and eel, to give them more swimming room, anyway the levels shot up I cought it about 2 weeks later and put the LR back in. Anyway, I've had some small problems with nitrite and ammonia ever since.

 

[NC2WA]

I have the sugar size aragamax sand by Caribsea in my tank. I've never vaccumed the sand as I have an orange diamond goby that makes sure the sand is always white. I also have a high end skimmer that does most of the work keeping the tank and water clean. My ammonia, nitrite and nitrates have been at zero since the tank has been running (which is almost 1 year).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7329275@N05/


Kirk

 

[dmbfreek]

I thought of some kind of bottom dwelling sand sifter but I don't want to add anything else until the water is perfect. Also afraid to get a sand sifting goby, not sure that he'd make it with the lion in there. I use an asm g2 and it seems to be doing a pretty good job. I was acually thinking about runing a large canister filter to see if that would help.

 

[NC2WA]

if no goby, then might consider nassarius snails..they are great sand sifters and eat deitrius on the sandbed. I have about 25 in my tank along with a sand sifting goby and sand sifting starfish. the only issue I have with the nassarius snails is they "smell" food and go after it..every time I feed my sebae anemone with silversides they steal it from the anemone...not happy...

 

[Scooterman]

The LR & SB will determine how much of your fish & their size poop that can be processes & some tanks with smaller fish won't have nearly as much poop so consider your fish to be heavy on the pooping which would require some assistance it waste removal If you don't have a large enough bio-system. Another thing you removed LR for two weeks then reinserted it, probably causing your tank to cycle again, even If the LR was fully cured & healthy, your adding to an already established tank that was probably exceeding the capabilities of the biological processing.

 

[Krish]

Basicly, I pulled out about 80% of the LR when I introduced the lion and eel, to give them more swimming room, anyway the levels shot up I cought it about 2 weeks later and put the LR back in. Anyway, I've had some small problems with nitrite and ammonia ever since.

Yeah, this here probably caused your problem. Removing that much rock one time can be a good shock to your biological filtration system and then adding in predatory fish that produce quite a bit of waste isn't helping much either. Your tank will have to adjust to the new bioload and become re-populated with the necessary bacteria to filter your tank biologically. May take some time...

 

[tdgates10]

I don't vacuum the sand, just the detritus in the crevices where my snails and goby can't reach. This will just maintain white sand and keep detritus build up to a minimum, but like krish stated, live rock probably caused a new cycle.