To Vacuum or not?

Just wondering thoughts on whether others think you should vacuum your dsb or not?  As well as if you do or not?

I (of course ) disagree with vacuuming the substrate. I like all of the good bugs living down there. I also believe that if there is a need to clean it due to detritus, cyano or whatever then there is a need to add something to the cleanup crew. One exception may be if there is an excess of rubble, shells or something not "natural" on the substrate that you want gone. But generally a vacuum won't remove this.

My opinion is that it can do more harm than good.

Rfoote,  I have wondered this as well.  There was some good discussion about it at the last WMAS meeting, and the concensus seemed to be that it would be bad to vacuum because you would lose the good critters in the DSB.  I keep wanting to vacuum, because we used to do that with our freshwater tank very regularly.  But now we have this 250g 36-inch tall tank, which rests on a 36-inch tall stand.  So getting UP to the top of the tank requires a sturdy ladder, and then getting DOWN to the substrate requires a long pair of tongs and/or a vacuum sucky tube.  So we kind of compromise, and use the turkey baster to gently blow stuff off of the rocks.  Our turbo snails seem to do a good job, and our hermit crabs keep things moving around a little.  We also have a goby that likes to build pyramids of substrate, so he's keeping things moving.  So that's a newbie opinion with a tank that's only been up since Dec 15th 2003.  Oh, I forgot to mention that we have a 55g sump, 1200gph pump, and excellent protein skimmer.  I'm glad you asked this question.

...and here I thought that they were supposed to look like crap.  Well, not the actual fish waste, but the different colorations that you get from the critters that live in your sand.  I've recently seen a couple of critters that I think are bristle worms in our substrate, and unfortunately a few flat worms.  So I know that our substrate is becoming more "lively," and from what I've heard that's good.  So if yours looks like crap, maybe that's a good thing. (??)

Renee

Adam, you mean with all the bright red, green, and black stuff in my sand it is good if it isn't white?  I don't need to get rid of the rainbow colors?  That is so cool!  My sand is good!

Struhs,

My current tank is only about 8 months old, but it is definately a rainbow of colors in the sand.  You should also be able to look close and see little detritus particles and also tiny shrimp running around in the sand.

Adam

To clean a different small portion of the substrate from time to time can be useful but to what depth does one go? I'm not sure it really matters because life will repopulate it.

The seafloor gets cleaned by the life living in it and by storms. There is a lot of life in the substrate that inverts/coral of all types enjoy eating. Stir up a portion from time to time or insert a hose into various points in the substrate and squirt till the tankwater is cloudy, as in a storm. Your inverts will love you for it.

I like the idea of Shane's synthetic storm.  I have noticed that our cucumbers are never fully extended except when I am stiring up the substrate.

I have always heard and read that the bio load in our tanks is way off from the natural reef.  We have too many fish and other organisms to our ratio of water and seafloor.  Doesn't it make sense that we should compensate for this by vacuuming.  I think that if we had miles of sea floor with a nice current sweeping toward the near by drop off then we wouldn't need to vacuum.  But we have a load of fish and coral in a box.

If you are worried about loosing organisms, just vacuum into your refugium. 

Jake, I thought it was against club policy to agree with me.

Thanks buddy!