Water Changes (This may be a dumb one!)

[Mr_Cool]

I'm just about ready to do my first water change on my new system. On the old one, I used to turn off all the pumps, etc, and let the water drain to the sump. I would then pump out as much water as I could from the sump. But, since it wasn't that big, I'd also pump more water from the display tank to get to the desired amount of water. I could also siphon some of the detritus off the rock and sand if needed.

With my new system, I 'll have plenty of room to pump all the water from the sump. Of course, I can still siphon the detritus, too. But, is it o'kay to take all of the water from the sump and none from the display?

(I told you it's probably a dumb one. But, taking it from the sump only would be so much easier. Could it be possible that, in this case, easier is also good?)

[brewercm]

That's how I do mine. I guess if you have a large build up of detritus you could vacuum some out when needed.

[LoneStar]

It doesn't matter since its all the same water ;)

Depending on how much detritus builds up on your sand bed, you can siphon it every so often.

[hanknmorgan]

I dont know if it helps, but on my little 12g tank I like to stir up the water as much as possible to get any dertitus off the rocks and stuff so it's floating in the water. That way when I start siphoning it out I get more nasty stuff out with the water. I dont think it really matters much on how you do you though, but I stir up all the junk every few days like that to let me filter get it all and it seems to keep the tank sparkly clean.