cleaning sand bed

has anyone vacumed there sand bed i have a tank that has been up and runing for over 5 years and has been way over feed for a long time so i think i have some build up in the sand good idea or bad ?

it is 3 or 4 inchs deep i just dont want to kill every thing i have stired some of it up and there is a big clowed of stuff that comes out

sounds good i will give it a try on just a small part where there is alge growing on the sand and see what hapens thanks

Eventually, you should change out some of the sand. The detritus that accumulates and the biofilm that covers each particle of aragonite kind of stagnates the sand bed. Julian Sprung, when he was last here a few years ago called it "old tank syndrome"; The problem that occurs in tanks as old as yours that have not had a sand bed rejuventaion. I was glad to hear Julian talk about it because it verified my long used method for maintaining a sand bed. I create a storm in the tank from time to time by running my stick or my hand through small sections of the sand to stir up the crud. Sometimes I go shallow and sometimes deep. This benefits all the inverts, including coral that like to eat the bugs and bacteria which get released into the water column by the little storm. In an established tank it may still take an hour for the storm to clear. I regularly give away large amounts of LS to new hobbyists or use it to start new tanks and replace it with new aragonite sand.

In years past, I found 1" of crushed coral, a very fine mesh, to seperate, 3" to 4" of fine sand worked best. I will not go into my studies on this post......its' too long of a paper to add and breaks down the flow of this question. The very fine mesh will help keep your sand from settling under the coral. It also helps to stir the tank once a month to loosen the first 0.25 layer of debris. I would use my Mag350 once a month anywas on the fisrt 0.5" to 0.75" anyways, it help to keep the tank clean.