Are you cleaning these in your aquarium and should you be?

[revhtree]

Inspired by a post yesterday I thought this would make a good discussion today! So what are we talking about here? ROCKS!! Should you, could you, would you clean your aquascape? If so, how the heck? Well by blowing off the detritus with some sort of device as simple as a turkey baster. So let me ask you this.

1. Are you cleaning your rocks, your aquascape by blowing off the settled gunk or detritus?

2. How do you clean your ROCK and what method works best for you?

image via @Copedog

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

I blow my rocks off when I’m doing maintenance and then catch whatever comes up in a fine mesh net.

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

I blow mine off with a turkey baster before a water change, but I also blow them off before I leave to work in the morning so I can feed the tentacles in the tank, its like home made reef snow that I don't have to buy.... every third water change I will blow the sand before a water change....

 

[stanleo]

I don't have turkey baster I just wave my hand over the rock during water changes and suck out as much as I can.

 

[siggy]

I have a large cuc and a couple MP40's doing that, but I will give it a go next time to see if they are doing their jobs.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I blow off with a baster and call it a day !

 

[S2G]

I have a powerhead I manually go around blowing the rocks off with every week during a wc.

 

[sfin52]

A couple times a week I blow them off.

 

[Zach W]

I typically blast the rocks everyday with a turkey baster, it helps only having a 20g tank though!

 

[Zeedawg]

Like most other folks - I use the turkey baster method on a semi to weekly basis due to my sifter spitting sand all over the place

 

[Cristy17]

I do blow the rocks once a month using this awesome pump. Cordless and you can adjust the flow.

 

[LadyMac]

I use a turkey baster but also a paint brush or tooth brush to get some of the stick in stuff off.

 

[ReeferCrabness]

I do the turkey baster thing during water changes as others have stated. I
also set my skimmer for a wet skim over the next few hours afterwards to help
filter out what I couldn't suck up during the water change.

 

[LC8Sumi]

I have no idea how to do this properly, because:
- If I do a 10% WC after, I’m leaving 99.99% of the stuff in there as it settles out fast back on the rocks
- If I do it while the tank is running, probably only 1% lands in the floss in my sump and the other 99% settles back out on the rockwork

 

[Terrp]

Whenever I get around to it, I turn down the power on one of the powerheads, grab it off the glass and wave it over the rocks. I let my filter roller and skimmer remove any resulting detritus. On the rare times I do a water change, I'll siphon the sump under the filter roller. Every once in a while, I may use Dr. Tim's Waste Away to remove any build-up in the rocks, pipes, etc. I'll also use Vibrant if I see signs of GHA.

 

[Ripp]

Have 125 gallon and use a turkey baster my girl helps me she like helping in the tank she will be in there every couple days. Scotter the goby dos a good job of making a mess ......and both hands on deck at wc

 

[salty joe]

I have a heavy duty pond pump with a wand and valve that I choke to thoroughly stir 1/4 of the sand every week, then I open the valve and blast all the rocks.
It doesn't keep things spotless, but it does keep things consistent. I don't like spotless anyway.

 

[Nierika]

I do blow the rocks once a month using this awesome pump. Cordless and you can adjust the flow.

That's pretty cool. What's the name of the pump?

 

[jgvergo]

I used to blow it off with a turkey baster. I also used to have a "surge mode" programmed into my Apex. Once an hour the WAVs would go at 100% for 1 minute. I did this 24 times a day.

However, since I started dosing Vibrant and NoPox, I find I don't need to do it any more! Everything is incredibly clean!!

 

[Zeedawg]

I do blow the rocks once a month using this awesome pump. Cordless and you can adjust the flow.

This is awesome! Can you share a link?