Water changes

[Drifty]

I have always vacuumed my substrate when I do a water change. I have been reading a lot lately about guys who just turn a valve and take out the required amount of water then fill the tank back up.

How do you guys do it, do you vacuum or just dump the water. If you just dump the water do you ever vaccuum the substrate or just stir it up from time to time.

[chimera]

just dump the water and stir up the substrate time to time

[Pies]

Just take out water, never wanting to disturb my sandbed.

Pie

[reef]

I vacuum the bottom every 2-3 months. no big deal to disturb the sand.

[petplanet]

I guess it depends on what you are doing with your substrate. If it a deep sand bed you would want to leave it alone. I vacuum but my substrate is about 3cm deep. I also turn it over regularly with my hand or a baster. Keeps it nice and white and stimulates my sun polyps to open for feeding.

[kevan]

I vacuum most of gravel every two to three months but only 1-2 cm deep stir it in buckets and return to tank.

[SteveA]

Typically add water to tank while simultaneously taking it out via the skimmer drain valve. Doesn't work so well if you want to do a big change as you pretty soon start taking out water you have just put in.

Rarely touch the sand bed (only about 2-3cm) except to tidy it a bit after my fish have done their sculpting.

Steve

[kevan]

When I do normal water change I just turn off heater drain sump , refill sump and turn on heater till water is correct temp , in winter add second heater to speed up. When back to temp turn on return pump works well and cleans out crap from sump.

[Control]

I always give my sandbed a stir but not all of it.

You can see where you stirred last time, so you stir somewhere else.

It's a great way to feed things and dosn't hurt anything.

My water change was automated with a controller which could if need be, be activated by the press of a button.

At the moment I just do a 10% manually straight from the tank after stirring some of the bottom.

Even if the bed is deep you still need to do some vacuming but not anywhere near as often and not all of it, this helps to avoid any serious buildup.

Aaron