Cleaning the tank

[BILL]

Just got done cleaning my tank. Again. Scrubbing the front glass, vacuuming the gravel, blowing off the liverock and the water change on my 55.
I removed the live rock to a large tub to vacuum the gravel and was wondering how you clean a large tank in the 180 to 220 size with 150 to 200 pounds of rock. Just on my 55 it takes a very good part of the morning.
I always worrry about the smaller creatures getting squished or trapped when moving the liverock and I think this is what takes most of the time.
BILL

[saltjunkie]

i might be a minority here but i never do anything like that in my salt water tanks, i let nature take care of it with water changes and a diversity of animals???

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Whoever invented salt water aquariums should be shot for taking all my money...everyday, oh well gotta have something to do!

[reefland]

What was the purpose for the intense cleaning? I never cleaned that extent unless there was a problem.

[BILL]

Really!?!
Boy, am I misinformed here. I was always told at my LFS to vacuum the gravel and I can't do that without moving the rock around. I've been doing this about once every five weeks. If I don't, the crushed coral starts to look dirty. Does this happen and should I just leave it alone? I do weekly water changes and have had excellent results with the health of my livestock.
Diversity of Animals:
Right now with my 4 damsels, Tomato clown, and yellow tang I have 1 arrowcrab, 1 cleaner, 1 camel shrimp, 1 sally lightfoot, 9 small hermits and 7 turbo snails with a bunch of tiny ones coming along. Also have several feather dusters, some sort of anemones and some mushrooms that rode in on the rock. Does this sound about right?
This has been bugging me for a long time when planning for my upgrade. The guy at the LFS talked me out of a 265 because he said the depth of the tank made the cleaning impossible.
Do you guys do anything other than the water changes? I might get an "I told you so" from my bother on this one.
O.K wait. Got my book out.
Monthly Maintenance:
"Siphon detritus from rockwork, substrate and aquascaping materials"
"Most gravel substrates should be lightly vacuumed on a regular basis..Fish only systems with heavy bioloads call for aggressive substrate vacuuming"
I don't get this. Are you guys using sand or gravel. BILL

[reefland]

I use a slight mix of sand and gravel, and never cleaned any of it. With a good amount of circulation, detritus shouldn't have a place to build up. Syphoning the substrate does nothing much more than disrupts the bed. Keep in mind that the "critters" living in the sand/gravel are there becuase it is dark and dense. Stirring them around is very uncomfortable to them.

hth

[FishTechie]

I have a 180 with LR and 180 lbs of aragamax oolitic SAND seeded with 50lbs of LS and i DO NOT vaccum my substrate, i use a turkey baster to blow off the detritus off of the LR and my gobies keep the sand stirred...

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My 180 Utopia: Updated 5/21/00

[BILL]

O.K. Got ya, but one more thing on water cirulation. I'm still using my UG filter so all the detritus is pulled down into the gravel. It has to be removed or will it not cause big problems?

[Joaco]

AHA! there you go, you have a UGF!

If you can't get your nitrates level down, you can partly blame it to the UGF. They are detritus traps and yes, you HAVE to siphon the crushed coral because the UGF produces a current that traps the detritus there. Don't clean it and you risk clogging it.
Just tell us the LFS recommended the UGF, that would make a lot of sence since they talked you out of getting the bigger tank...

Now, DON'T rip off the UGF in one move if you have fish in there, the sudden organic waste suspension will quickly deplete oxygen in the tank...bye bye fishies. And if oxygen depletion doesnt kill them, you still risk poisoning the tank with all the gunk that accumulated under the UGF itself.

Joaco

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Joaco's saltwater webpage Updated 10th June 2000

[Snailman]

If you vacuum the sand bed you are sucking up all of the little creatures that clean the sand bed. It took me years to convince my wife of this. She deep vacuumed her tank once a week. She finally stopped and it takes a while for the sand bed to recover but it does and then the substrate stays clean on it's own. I could not imagine taking the LR out of the tank to clean. The less you mess with a tank and keep your hands out the better it will become over time. She has enough current that nothing settles out in it. It all stttles out in the sump which is a 150 gallon Rubbermaid stock watering tank. We vacuume it every couple of months. I want to put a DSB in the sump and load it with worms but I can't shut it down to do this and I am afraid that it will cloud the whole system and my wife would not like that at all. [img]/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img] My tank has been up a one year and it has had the substrate vacuumed once in that time. I have a 20 gallon surge device driven by a 1500 GPH pump so nothing has much of a chance to settle out in there either. It settles out in the surge device. I have mounted a PC light over it and I am putting an ATS turf algae plate in it to take care of that. My little DIY algae turf scrubber. [img]/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

[Joaco]

Snailman,
Bill doenst have a sand bed, but a UGF with gravel [img]/ubb/wink.gif[/img]

Joaco

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Joaco's saltwater webpage Updated 10th June 2000

[Snailman]

Originally posted by Joaco:
Snailman,
Bill doenst have a sand bed, but a UGF with gravel [img]/ubb/wink.gif[/img]

Joaco

I saw that but I guess that it just did not register. [img]/ubb/smile.gif[/img] I was still so struck at the thought of moving all that LR. [img]/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

[reefland]

Joaco, I agree with your statement about the removal of the UGF and all that would be stirred up. How would you suggest to everyone that has one, how to remove it?

IMO, the only real safe way to do it is to put your livestock in a Q tank and give the tank some time to settle after the removal to put them back in.

Your thoughts?

[Doh]

I agree with Reefland on moving your livestock to a q-tank, I recall removing a UGF in a freshwater tank and it wasn't pleasant. You can't believe the detritus that settles in there, even with regular vacuming.

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"Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel." - Homer Simpson

[Doh]

On a slightly different note, FishTechie - how do you get on with your Gobies sifting your sand? Do they dump it on your corals?

I've considered getting one on multiple occasions, but have heard horror stories about them killing corals with their sand sifting ways... I've heard they do a great job though.

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"Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel." - Homer Simpson

[This message has been edited by Doh (edited 06-12-2000).]

[Joaco]

reefland,
yes, I think the safest way would be to remove your lifestock as you said (BTW not always easy and involves stress).
Then I would siphon the gravel the best you can and connect a canister filter or similar to help remove all the suspended organic waste. Large water change wouldnt be a bad idea either...
wow, almost sounds like you would have to take your tank appart just to remove the UGF

Joaco

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Joaco's saltwater webpage Updated 11th June 2000

[Snailman]

I recently helped a fellow at work remove a UGF and gravel from a FO tank. He did not have fish in it yet so that was the easy part. I told him to pump all of the water out into a rubbermaid trash can. Remove gravel and UGF and rinse tank out. Put HD sand it and pump the water back in. When the water cleared he put in some LR that he got from me and he was on the way to FOWLR happiness. [img]/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Noah]

Okay guys, that happened to me too. Then I started thinking a lot more about what I was doing.

And yes the LFS went under, because of the blind leading the uneducated.

And luckily, it was my first tank and I had some hardy fish in there. I ended up removing everything! Then once the tank settled I vacuumed the debris out and let it settle again. Then basically started over [img]/ubb/mad.gif[/img] But everything worked out okay I guess. Except I never got to give the owner of that store a good shoeing! Just kidding.

So I guess chalk it up as a learning experience Bill.

Doh, I have a couple pairs of Rainfordi's and Watchman Gobies and never had any trouble with them

[BILL]

Thanks for all the responses on this. Can I throw one more thing in here. In less than six months I will be starting to invest into my upgrade. Everything in the 55 will be moved into the bigger tank. I really hate the idea of stressing everything by removing the UGF now. Would it be smarter and safer to just leave the system alone because in six months I'm taking it down? Like I mentioned before, it has been up and running for about 18 months with no problems.
Joaco, Yep, the LFS set me up with the UGF. They did talk me out of the 265 but I'm still looking at the 220 and 180 so not all is lost. I've already planned for sand and LR in the new system.
Noah, This is a learning experience for me. One of the biggest lessons in this hobby was on learning how little the people at the local LFS know. They did O.K. with my freshwater tank but once I entered the salt world there are so many things I would have done differently. I'm glad now I started small. Thanks again everyone, BILL

[mazer62]

I will have to agree with Saltjunkie.. Seems like that is a bit much for cleaning..

[mazer62]

One thing that I have learned in this hobby is that what one person swears by another swears against. LFS are a good place to start getting info, but nothing will beat reading, reading, reading.... And now there is Reefland.com here which makes it that much easier... Once you have your UGF remove try a Burrowing Starfish and a Dragon Goby.. I have 55 also and this duo works wonders...