# To clean or not to clean?



## poobar (Feb 20, 2011)

I have a 35 gallon with a sand bed of between an inch to 2.
I also have a sump with a 3 inch fine sand bed.

I know that syphon cleaning the sump's bed is an absolute no no!!

But do I syphon clean the main tank's sand bed????


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

I do every month

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## J_T (Mar 25, 2011)

poobar said:


> I have a 35 gallon with a sand bed of between an inch to 2.
> I also have a sump with a 3 inch fine sand bed.
> 
> I know that syphon cleaning the sump's bed is an absolute no no!!
> ...


If you don't clean both of them, you will be asking us why you have high nitrates, and algae everywhere.

Need more than 4" to be considered a "DSB" which you don't touch. With only 2-3" you should be cleaning it.


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## rickcasa (Dec 7, 2011)

I agree. And for a thorough cleaning, I turn one of the Koralias on the live rocks and blow up a storm. All the acans, cukes and other filter feeders have quite the detritus binge.


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## Dax (Sep 29, 2010)

J_T said:


> Need more than 4" to be considered a "DSB" which you don't touch. With only 2-3" you should be cleaning it.


and there you have it ..... your answer.


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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

I just stick my fingers in the sand and swish it around until the tank looks like a snowstorm


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## adrenaline (Jan 17, 2011)

Good to know. My sandbed varies from 1-2" and I do siphon it. However I was ver skeptical about blowing my detritus off rocks and all over the tank.

I used to hold a power head in hand and blow off one rock from time to time to avoid the snowstorm affect which trying to keep detritus down.

If it's not a bad think i'll do it a bit more often and just run some filter floss on an external filter to suck out the lovely stuff...


All but one of my hermits has disappeared over the last few months. I'm lacking in the clean up crew department


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

altcharacter was just kidding. Always reduce 50% from what he says 

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## adrenaline (Jan 17, 2011)

then i shall stick to what works!  no massive detritus storm for my fishy friends


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