Maintenance on a reef tank

[Bdonaldson]

I need some info on proper cleaning techniques for a reef tank. Could you all please share with me how you clean your reef tanks? I would greatly appreciate it.

I was told to clean the rocks with a scrubber and stir the substrate whenever I do my water changes. I'm not sure this was good advice. So whatever input you all can give me would help me out a lot.


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[bribo12]

No no don't stir the substrate! But I do use a turkey vaster to get all the crap off my rocks before I do a wc. Other than that I scrape algae off the glass and replace any used filter material.


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[PB_Smith]

I need some info on proper cleaning techniques for a reef tank. Could you all please share with me how you clean your reef tanks? I would greatly appreciate it.

I was told to clean the rocks with a scrubber and stir the substrate whenever I do my water changes. I'm not sure this was good advice. So whatever input you all can give me would help me out a lot.


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that sounds more like advice to make you fail.
curious, did the person who offered that advice have reef tanks or any success with them?

Scrubbing the rocks will kill/remove all the good stuff/critters you WANT to be in there. Same goes for stirring the substrate.
Get a few snails to stir the sand for you.

 

[Bdonaldson]

No no don't stir the substrate! But I do use a turkey vaster to get all the crap off my rocks before I do a wc. Other than that I scrape algae off the glass and replace any used filter material.


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Thanks for the info. I will leave the substrate alone going forward. Although i do have a large Clarkii that like to move all the sand from the back to the front of the tank so I usually have to even it out when I do my water change. I will give the turkey Baster a try.


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[Bdonaldson]

that sounds more like advice to make you fail.
curious, did the person who offered that advice have reef tanks or any success with them?

Scrubbing the rocks will kill/remove all the good stuff/critters you WANT to be in there. Same goes for stirring the substrate.
Get a few snails to stir the sand for you.

The person that was helping me has tanks but he doesn't have any sand in his because his tanks are set up for selling corals so he only has live rock in his tanks. He is very successful at what he does.

My rock is getting full of stuff growing on it and I'm not sure if that's ok or if it needs to removed. I will attach a picture so you can see what I am talking about.

I hand some nassuarus snails but maybe I need to get some more.




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[BigRedsReefs10]

No no don't stir the substrate! But I do use a turkey vaster to get all the crap off my rocks before I do a wc. Other than that I scrape algae off the glass and replace any used filter material.


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+1 to that, and I'll add clean the power heads as needed to the list

 

[Bdonaldson]

+1 to that, and I'll add clean the power heads as needed to the list

Yeah I do clean the power heads when needed. They do get a lot if stuff on them sometimes. Thanks for your input.


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[TheTodd]

My rock is getting full of stuff growing on it and I'm not sure if that's ok...

I hand some nassuarus snails but maybe I need to get some more.

Those eat detritus, not algae.

Ceriths and Nerites eat everything. Astrea are supposed to be great for hair algae, but eat film algae as well.

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[Animal-Chin]

I just got 5 golfball sized turbo snails for my 125 gallon and in 3 days you couldn't find one speck of algae. Best algae eaters I've ever seen. A couple of them have these really cool shells that looke like abalone shell. They look like they are made of metal. They sure knock over stuff though...lol

If you want to clean your sand thats fine but don't stir it up, use one of those gravel cleaners you get at the store to suck up the gunk. They do a good job without messing up your water too much...

 

[Bdonaldson]

Those eat detritus, not algae.

Ceriths and Nerites eat everything. Astrea are supposed to be great for hair algae, but eat film algae as well.

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I was saying I have nassuarus snails to help clean the sand bed.

I have ceriths and nerites but I just think I have to add more.



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[Bdonaldson]

I just got 5 golfball sized turbo snails for my 125 gallon and in 3 days you couldn't find one speck of algae. Best algae eaters I've ever seen. A couple of them have these really cool shells that looke like abalone shell. They look like they are made of metal. They sure knock over stuff though...lol

If you want to clean your sand thats fine but don't stir it up, use one of those gravel cleaners you get at the store to suck up the gunk. They do a good job without messing up your water too much...

I thought about getting some of the turbos but just haven't gotten around to getting them.

I had a turbo snail in my 20 gallon long reef and he did do a really good job cleaning the algae up until he died.

I have a manual gravel cleaner that use to try and get the gunk out. I think I need one that has a bigger tube on it though. My tanks are in my office at work so I can't really use the kind that hooks up to the sink.


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[Bdonaldson]

Love all the feedback, keep it coming.


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[Bdonaldson]

I think part of my problem of getting stuff off the rocks is how my rocks are setup. I have all shelf rock that I drilled holes in so I could put them on a fiberglass rod that is glued down into a paving stone. So I have two sets of these shelf rocks sitting next to each other and I have bridged the two sets with pieces of live rock. On each fiberglass rod I have 5 pieces of shelf rock and each piece is separated by a 1 1/2" pieces of 1" PVC pipe.

Part of my problem with this setup is that I think the critters have a hard time going from level to level on the shelf rock so I was trying to come up with a way for them to get from one level to the next. Maybe putting a small piece of rock in between each level so they could climb up on the small piece of rock to get up to the next level.


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