to suck or not...

when i do water changes i syphon from the main tank and add back to the sump so i never have to do any heavy lifting.  I thought for a while that as long as my circulation was up to snuff i could just take water from the main tank, and never "filter" the sand like you do in freshwater tanks.

so after a few months of not disturbing the sand i decided to disturb it tonight and see what came up  i couldn't believe all the ditrius that came up!  sometimes even in big "balls" the size of a small marble that were just lightly buried below the sand.  i can't believe all the crap that wasn't being dealt with sufficiently by my tank (although there were no noticable problems with anything).

what do you guys do when water changing, disturb the sand or not?

i should note that there was no noticable change in the way the sand "looked", ie you could not see the ditrius on the surface of the sand.

-dwn

I agree with Chris. My tanks are over a year old and I have never vacumned the sand. If I see a sponge I do everything I can to make it grow.

Yep.

If you have added life to the sand by getting LS from some of us and if you can see worm trails in the sand like below, then your LS is excellent. The most vacumming that anybody seems to do these days is just the top half inch once in a while.

Sorry, no pic. For some reason the "page could not be displayed" I'll try again later.

Ok, i'm feel alright about my old plan then.  I only vac'd the top maybe 3/4 of an inch and found all sorts of bristle worms and things in it that unfortuantely some of got sucked!

sounds like the concensus is:

vacuuming gravel isn't "necessary" but some people still do

when people do:

    they only do it ever coupl of months
    they never do the whole thing all at the same time
    they only vac the very top layer to get detrius up and not disrupt life underneath

thanks for the advise everyone!

Here is what I would do (although I don't do it)
1. Take a powerhead and blow all the detritus off the rock. ***
2. Install a canister filter while you do your water change.
3. Perform your water change as normal.
4. Remove the canister filter when the water sparkles.
5. Clean the filter in the canister and store until the next water change.

*** Avoid stirring the gravel except where detritus accumulates.

And detritus swirling in the water feeds coral.

As a general practice, I squirt water into the substrate with a turkey baster or large syringe. A puff of detritus enters the water column. Filter feeders love it.

Isn't it amazing the useful and valuable tips you get from the many good reefers on this MB.

I vacuum my sand bed everytime I have a water change.  It might not be a good idea if you have a deep sand bed since vacuuming might disturb the anaerobic layer and release the noxious gases into water; but a shallow sandbed will have no problem.  I do believe that detritus will accumulate in the sand bed over time and cause you a headache later (the infamous "deep sandbed crash" that happens when tanks get past a few years mark).  If you frequent reefcentral, you might have bump into Steve East (or is it West) who maintains a gorgeous 700+ gallon tank in Oregon and routinely vaccuums his sand bed.