how to fight detritus on sand bed?

[edwardclaxton]

Hey guys I have another question. How do you all fight detritus on your sand bed? I do siphon the top of my sand bed to keep it clean. I have pretty good water movement probably a little much. I dont have the powerheads pointing at the sand because it does make a mess. I do weekly water changes with rodi my meter says that I have 0.01 ppm in the out. I did buy new filters about to put them in. But what causes detritus to occur? To me it seems to pile up after water changes. And advice would be great. Thanks

 

[r_ledwards]

I am no expert but sand sifting starfish, crabs and snails help. Also, there is a blenny that sifts the sand that helps.

 

[Sniperhank]

Having good flow in your tank will prevent poop and food from settling on your sandbed. I've tried a variety of guys to sift through the sandbed.

I like nar sous snails and a conch, but I have a pretty established sandbed to keep them fed. I'd avoid a sand sifting starfish as they require so much food from the sandbed they usually always starve and die under the sand, you won't know where it's decamping and cause issues. Either way, they still poop and aren't a true solution to a problem.

 

[MarinaClown]

How big of a tank? Some tangs such as orange shoulder or chevron ($$$) will eat detritus in addition to algae. So if yours is big enough for either then problem might be solved.

 

[Mebbid]

By far the best way is to keep enough flow in the tank that the detritus doesn't get a chance to sit on the sand bed and can be collected by mechanical filtration.

 

[bshenanagins]

By far the best way is to keep enough flow in the tank that the detritus doesn't get a chance to sit on the sand bed and can be collected by mechanical filtration.

Agreed, don't rely on fish and inverts to clean up the crap, although they are helpful. Solve the problem don't band aid it.

 

[MarinaClown]

Clean up is actually very important in this case. My turnover rate is 45 times the size of the aquarium (1800 GPH in a 40 gallon breeder) and sometimes the poop stays at the bottom. That's a lot of flow and I still rely on my CUC.
Also, it's hard to say much here because the OP has not said anything about his/her aquarium. Certain fish are just heavy poppers and their poop will stick to the bottom. If all the OP has is small fish then technically a good flow should take care of the problem. But we simply don't know it for fact.

 

[Bectan01]

I like my 2 conch they do a great job In my 55g. How much do you feed and how often? I can't remember if you said what your parameters were?

 

[huma-huma]

I don't think "higher flowrates" is the answer here. as previously mentioned, we need to know what fish are in the tank. for instance my Lt. Tangs poop immediately sinks to the bottom, no matter what. so knowing what fish are in the tank will help

 

[edwardclaxton]

I have 125. With 2 jebao wp40. Two clowns, about 10 blue legs, 2 conch, 2 cleaner shrimp, 3 turbo snails and countless naz snails.

 

[huma-huma]

I have 1 WP40 in my 125 with my evo750 and I know the power those wp40's have. your best bet may be to try and open up the rockwork some more. if your live rock is packed in tight and close to the glass it doesn't allow good circulation of water.

 

[edwardclaxton]

My tank id say it pretty open. The only glass its close to is the back glass. The front and thr rocks have probably 6 to 8 inches of space. And the rock from the sides one side it probably 10 to 12 inches and the other is about 6 to 8. I dont have my powerheads pointing down tho. They are pointed up because they blow sand everywhere. I guess I should mention my tank is under 6 months old. Do you think that might have somethibg to do with it?

 

[huma-huma]

yeah these powerheads are way too powerful to point them down at the sand. what mode you keep them on? I run mine on W1 S1

 

[edwardclaxton]

I use the else mode on one and w1 on the other. I can only use w1 for now bc the impeller broke and it only spins on tbat mode. I ordered another but its shipping from hong Kong

 

[edwardclaxton]

Hey ive been thinking could it be diatoms instead of detritus?

 

[huma-huma]

I completely understand on the shipping. (took FOREVER to get mine) and If its moving with the waterflow, id doubt its diatoms. either upload a decent photo of it or google diatoms and compare.

 

[edwardclaxton]

Here is a picture after a few days. I did a water change cleaned the sand. They were back the next morning. So I used my siphon hose and sand vac to clean the sand into my sump. Which I had the end of my siphon in a filter sock. This is 2 days after. I did add some marco rock maybe 15 20 lbs. It was dry. But I did try to cure it over 8 weeks.
From the start:
I started with 50lbs of live 50 lbs of dry rock. Sand was dry about 2.5 in sand bed.
4 months later added this 15 to 20 lbs of dry rock. Ever since I added the new dry rock my sand has been doing this. Anu suggestions besides taking it out.

 

[huma-huma]

Check your phosphate levels and are you using RODI? Water