[EricTheRed]

I have been keeping fish for over 40 years and I may be “old school” but I think thoroughly vacuuming the gravel during water changes is the single most important thing you can do as a responsible fish keeper. It’s worked very well for me and kept me from having to buy various fish medications over the decades or deal with strange fish die offs. I strongly recommend you keep regularly using that vacuum Mr. Hisham, your fish will be thankful you did and reward you with a lifetime of good health, color, and activity.

 

[EricTheRed]

I have Aragonite sand in my 125g Peacock and Hap tank. I always get a noticeable amount of detritus from the Aragonite when I vacuum the sand about every two weeks. The aragonite is very fine so a small amount always gets vacuumed up with the detritus into a 5 gallon bucket I use for the water changes. I fill this bucket up about six to seven times during every water change. The Aragonite that gets sucked up into the bucket, I carefully clean then return it to the tank. By the end of this process, my Aragonite sand looks pristine and I am good for another two weeks. I use 3 HOB filters ( a Tidal 110, Aquaclear 110, and a Marineland Emperor 400) but I don’t have a wave maker, so the detritus mostly lies on the surface of the sand, but enough gets buried that I find it worthwhile to vacuum all of the Aragonite sand during every water change. Listening to Podcasts while I work makes this two hour bi-monthly task, less of a chore.