I'm about to clean my fish tank again

[Otters]

I did the first water change 2 weeks ago, 10 gallon change out of the 46 gallon I have. However this time I want to ask you guys how can I clean my tank the most efficent way? I also want to clean the sand before it absorbs too much nitrate and get rid some of the algae on it.

Thank You

[John Hamilton]

I MAY be wrong, but I have never cleaned my sand! I use a Banded Goby, two Sand Sifting Starfish, five Nassarius Snails, one Garden Eel, And oodles of Micro Starfish and worms to stir the bed. I use different kinds of snails to keep the surface clean. I really don't think you want to clean the sand because that's where a lot of your bacterial filtration is. Once in a while I may stir a spot that obviously nothing has cleaned, but that's very, very seldom. My crew keeps the bottom of my 175 sparkling clean.

[smidoid]

Hey John, where did you get the micro starfish? I seem to have adopted three with the last batch of LR (all about 1/2" across) but as the tank is cycling, I doubt they will survive. [The kids will be gutted]

[John Hamilton]

I got them at Indo Pacific Sea Farm

You may be suprised at how resiliant they are, I got mine while the tank was cycling and they climb up the glass at night, I have so many.

[BubbaWPB]

Otters, I just vacuum out any visible detritus (or slime) off the top of the sand when I siphon out the water. If you have good circulation and filtration (skimmer and biological), you don't need to "clean" your tank regularly... just keep up the regular water changes....and scrape the crud off the glass.