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Molli 
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 Topic: Stirring up the sand
Posted: July 19 2012 at 10:38pm |
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I've been trying to learn as much as I can from reading many of the threads on the boards, and one fairly common theme to try to resolve some problems in a tank is to do a really good stirring of the sand and then a massive water change. In the reading that I did before purchasing my tank (mine is 2 months old today), I read that it is a good idea to create a storm in your tank weekly (or monthly if you prefer) and stir up the sand. Now .. in the reading that I did it said this is only recommended if you start doing this from the beginning. In other words, it is not a good idea to take an older tank and suddenly stir up your sandbed with your animals in the tank if your tank because of all the crud that will be released into the water. So .. about every 3 weeks or so I've been creating this storm in my tank. So far everything in my tank still looks great and when I do my testing (I'm still paranoid and in the learning process so I test once a week -- heck I was testing daily at first!) all my test results are really good. I don't have a deep sandbed, and I don't stir the heck out of it, but I do take a plastic thing and move it all around in the open sand to stir it up a bit. And I take my turkey baster and try to clean off the live rock during this process. I thought I better ask some of you experienced people if, in the long run, you think I might have some problems in creating this storm in my tank like this. I just really don't want to wake up one day to a disaster in my tank with stuff dying -- reading some of these posts where that is happening to people kinda scares me!
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builderofdreams
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Posted: July 23 2012 at 11:38am |
I don't see a problem with what you are doing along as your not digging all the way to the glass. Stirring the top part of the sand is fine. Really good for Sponges and keeps the sand Aeriated. i would only do section of the tank at a time. Might want to get a sand sifting goby to do it for ya. Pictures of your Tank would be cool. Always enjoy seeing others Art Work.
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Jeremyw
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Posted: July 23 2012 at 11:52am |
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Yes, you should be fine. I do it all the time. My sun corals love when I do it! Now that I mention it all my corals love it!
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DLindquist
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Posted: July 23 2012 at 6:06pm |
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I've been stirring my sand 2-4 times a month with a turkey baster for almost eighteen years now. We upgraded our 90G to a 265G just over a year ago and when I tore down the 90G, I was amazed how much crud was contained inside the sand bed.
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tfmreefs
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Posted: July 23 2012 at 6:46pm |
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Wow... Maybe I should start doing this! And it doesn't hurt nor bother the fish?
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Will Spencer
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Posted: July 23 2012 at 7:01pm |
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There are several problems that can arise from stirring the tank like this, but don't let that stop you.
1) You are disturbing the bacteria in the sand, specifically the anaerobic bacteria in a deep sand bed. However, if you don't have a deep sand bed or you started stirring near the time the tank was set up you don't have anaerobic bacteria and even though you are disturbing the aerobic bacteria, there is so much of it that it won't affect your tank.
2) If you have not stirred up the sand, especially a deep sandbed, for a long time there could be sulfer gasses trapped in the sandbed. These are poisonous to fish and if released in large quantities could be detrimental or deadly to them. (This gas smells like rotten eggs so if you stir it up you will know it.) Having said that, I accidentally did this in a tank I had years ago and freaked out when the whole room started smelling of rotten eggs. I didn't have anything to do a water change with so I had to run to the store and get salt, make water, mix and then start a water change about 2 hours later. As bad as the smell was I didn't loose a single fish and frankly by the time I had the water ready for the water change I probably didn't need to do it any longer. I still did, but I personally believe all of the gas had been released from the water by then. (I could be wrong though.)
So, that was my long way of saying I think stirring up the sand bed is not a problem, in fact it may be good and certainly helps the sand stay pretty, and will keep sulfer gasses from ever building up in your sandbed.
As for a sand sifting Goby, I personally don't recommend them. They will spread sand all over your corals all of the time and they tend to starve, especially in new tanks, since they are sifting the sand looking for small critters to eat and there is almost never a sufficient population of critters to keep them fed. When I had a sand sifting goby I thought I had beat this problem because mine was eating the food I introduced to the tank, but sure enough the bugger got skinnier and skinnier and still ended up starving to death. It just a couple years rather than only a couple weeks for months.
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