How often do you clean your sump?

[spyd]

Another maintenance poll to see what everyone does here. Personally, I clean my sump every 4 months or so. I clean my sump the same time I am doing a water change. I have live rock in my sump and it collects dietritus. So, I remove my rock and put it in some pails with some freshly removed water during my water change. I then drain the sump and remove all the crap from the bottom and pour in some freshly mixed salt water for my water change. Put the rocks back in and fire it up. I usually clean the return pump at this time as well, along with the skimmer pump and all.

 

[reeffreak]

I use a shop vac to suck up everything in my sump. I remove my skimmer to clean it out,While its out I vac up all the crap in there and then fill er back up with new salt mix. I do this bi-weekly

 

[Duke]

im thinking about a big sump overhaul/cleaning, i was going to use a shop vac to suck out my refugium sand bed and then clean all the rock down there and run without a sand bed down there from now on..

 

[Neopimp]

Reefreak is an over achiever . I have never cleaned the sump.  Have cleaned the skimmer and stuff though.

 

[Petercar (RIP Dec 2017)]

i cleaned mine. a few months ago.  ..i use socks. .so the sump is usually clean.  .but i did go a year. without cleaning it.  jsut pulled the whole sump out with skimmer and return pump out and put it in the shower stall. and shower massage it all witha. tooth brush

 

[curiousphil]

I've started using the Shopvac method and I'm LOVING it!  Whenever it's water change time, and I see some crap sitting in the bottom of my sump... I suck it right out.  Lately it's been monthly or bi-weekly.  I need to get filter socks back onto my returns...

 

[pulpfiction1]

my sump only got cleaned because i changed it,so never i guess but ido have a mag glass cleaner that i use sometimes as my sump doubles as a time out tank

 

[Boga]

I do the entire sump two times per year. I've changed few sump tanks lately so my current sump is few months old. I do the skimmer and return pumps more often, about every 3-4 months.

 

[draper]

im not sure I understand  ???  aside from pruning back calerpua, isn't the sump a biological advantage too. cleaning it would only damge that wouldn't it. I know its ability to handle nitrates would nt be effected but the biological capabilities would.  who has a comment either way? thanks

 

[TORX]

im not sure I understand  ???  aside from pruning back calerpua, isn't the sump a biological advantage too. cleaning it would only damge that wouldn't it. I know its ability to handle nitrates would nt be effected but the biological capabilities would.  who has a comment either way? thanks

The question is cleaning out your SUMP (skimmer, dietritus, pumps, and other build up, etc.), not refugium.

 

[Duke]

im not sure I understand  ???  aside from pruning back calerpua, isn't the sump a biological advantage too. cleaning it would only damge that wouldn't it. I know its ability to handle nitrates would nt be effected but the biological capabilities would.  who has a comment either way? thanks

as one who has never cleaned the sump I tend to agree with you, but my issue now is that in my refugium I have sand and on that there is a layer of deterius that's about 1/4" thick under my giant cube of calupera.. my thinking now is its more or less just feeding my calupera so im going to remove my sandbed and keep my refugium clean with only clean rock and a smaller amount of algae, im letting bio pellets take care of nitrates and also the natural denitrification that comes with a nice mature tank so I don't think the refugium is as needed as when I first set everything up without bio pellets.

 

[reeffreak]

When running pellets I would advise against a refuge with macro algea, IMHO it's counterproductive.

 

[jroovers]

When running pellets I would advise against a refuge with macro algea, IMHO it's counterproductive.

I would agree with this, not sure counterproductive is the word, but maybe not necessary?

I took out the macro algae in my sump quite some time ago, and got rid of the DSB about a year ago.  I just have some LR in the fuge area of my sump, and man o man does it collect detritus.  Great to take it out, drain it, and use the shop vac as a few others have mentioned to get rid of it.  I find spending the time to do this once every two weeks easier than trying to change socks every other day.  I also do the same to my skimmer section and return section regularly.  I have a shallow sand bed in my display, and have been slowly sucking it out with each water change in order to get it out in favour of a new shallow bed.  Even though I stir it up regularly (once to twice a week), it is amazing how much crap is in there when you suck it out, the drained water/substrate is almost black when being sucked out.

 

[Jewel]

Every six months but its only a light suction trying to get the debri out, I clean the skimmer and pumps every 3 months though.

 

[MrHermit85]

I havnt cleaned mine in 8 months. There isn't much in the way of detritus down there. Most I it all gets caught in my chaeto monster section which I guess acts like a filter. Only clean my pumps and skimmer.