Sand Stirring

Repost:

I wanted to ask everyone about their opinion on this. My LFS told me to stir my argonite sand bed up before I did my next water change. Something about Nitrogen bubbles in the sand, causing nitrates levels to be high.

Is this a good idea?

I've heard of sand sifting creatures...but taking a stick and stirring up the sand bed...I was hoping for more info before doing that!!

thanks all....

Scoffer

 

As long as you don't have a deep sand bed, you don't have to worry about nitrogen buildup.  If you have a shallow sand bed, it's not a bad practice to stir the gunk up in the sand a bit before doing your water changes.  Sand stirrers do a good job of keeping the sand clean too but they couldn't possibly eat all of the stuff that's stuck in your sand. It's also a good idea to blast your rock with a turkey baster or powerhead from time to time to loosen up all the detritus that settles on it. You can do this before your water changes as well.

 

That dose not sound good to me. I believe that would upset the biological filtering in the sand bed it's self. 8)
But someone with more experience will let you know more.

 

Its about a 2 inch deep sand bed...and I couldn't get to most of it anyways with all the LV on it...

 

[quote author=Scuba link=board=General;num=1099235267;start=0#2 date=10/31/04 at 07:35:14]That dose not sound good to me. I believe that would upset the biological filtering in the sand bed it's self. 8)
But someone with more experience will let you know more.[/quote]
The biological filter of your sand is aerobic bacteria so stirring up a shallow sand bed will not upset the balance. If you had a deep sand bed which uses anaerobic bacteria as one of its filtration methods then, yes, you could do some damage

 

Amcarrig isn't there a possible problem by stirring the sand bed and releasing the nitrogen or Hydrogen Sulfide Gas from the sand bed into the water with the fish :-/? Can't it kill them? >

 

Hi John. If you have a shallow sandbed and stir/clean it regularly, it shouldn't cause any problems as there will be no build up of nitrogen under the sand. If the sandbed is 3" or deeper it is considered a deep sand bed and should not be disturbed or stirred as there will be pockets of nitrogen gas under the sand and you will kill the anaerobic bacteria by exposing it to oxygen.

What I do from time to time with my 1" sand bed is run my diatom filter while I stir the sand and blow detritus off of my rock. I'll do this over an 8 hour period. It does a fantastic job and I've never seen any negative effects

 

OK So what you are saying then is that it is ok to do on a sand bed that is less than 3" deep but not on a DSB correct? :-/.............. John

 

Correct, as long as you remove the "dirt" either mechanically or by water changes, all should be well

 

OK So this is like I thought then ( But ) only in a tank with a DSB So this is something I would definitely not want to do in my tank as I have a 4 1/2" sand bed. Thank you for clearing that up amcarrig ;D..... John