Removing Sand Base

[UncleFester]

I'm considering remove the sand base from my system, my plan would be to remove the sand base over a number of weekly water changes, with complete removal after a month.

Has any members done this, if so, please could you share your experiences.

The rationale behind removal, is to allow me to place a powerhead/wave maker at the lowest point of my system to push any detritus into the water column which in turn will eventually get captured in the sump.

[jacky]

Sorry, I have no such experience, but this process must be gradually slow. I think that these muds will not be a serious problem in the healthy biology and the low malnutrition Zeo system. We only need to vacuum when changing the water. Some shallow sand beds are better than Choose the way to be exposed, the benefits of them (shallow sand bed) will come more

[G.Alexander]

With the sand you remove a lot of biology so doing this slowly is really important. The sediments in the sand are basically not causing any harm and in a nutrient poor system the shallow sand bed does not accumulate nutrients but it does strengthen the biology of a system.

G.Alexander

[UncleFester]

Thanks both, on reflection, I will be aiming to reduce the sand bed in the back of the tank and under the rock scape as their is a fair build up of sediment, which I will continue to remove at each water change. My system is doing well at the moment so don't want to go up-setting the balance.