Thanks for the reply, Bifferwine and Hello from Tucson too!
Okay, I understand that one shouldn't mess with the sand bed all the time, but once in a while shouldn't one clean some of the reef "dust" out? I have tons of nas. snails, sand sifting starfish, horseshoe crabs, hermits, sallys, etc... and I don't see any food build up down there but if I stir it up some (when cleaning the sides) I get a huge "dust" storm. I have 2 large 14000 Quiet One pumps (3500+ gph) so I have a lot of water flow. Some of it goes over the sides and gets filtered out by the pre-sump sponges, but most of it just settles back down. I guess what concerns me is the shear amount of it that exists. If stirred up just a little it really looks like a dust storm in the tank. Then it settles all over the live rocks and coral too. Then I spend some time with a turkey baster "spraying" everything off. The stuff's not all light enough to go to the top and overboard so it settles back to the bottom. Then gets mixed down in the sand again. And then it begins again... With that said, I know that a lot of that stuff is beneficial, but again isn't too much a bad thing? I also just recently for the first time in over a year had some Black algae growth on top of the sand. I have also read about some poisonous gases can build up down in there and then taint the water. Some times when I stir up things deeply a lot of bubbles do come up. I just concerned with the amount of stuff and whether or not too much of a good thing is really bad!
Thanks again for all your input.
