Detritus question

[Klyph]

So my aquarium is around a year old. The parameters are all perfectly in line. Nitrates around 4, phosphates at 0.0. But I’ve got detritus coating all my rocks and everything in the tank. It just looks unclean.

I do have a clean up crew, but they obviously aren’t doing the job. A lot of my snails are dying, as if they don’t have enough food.

Anyway, I’m thinking about doing a light scrubbing of everything I can reach with a toothbrush, and then do a 50% water change while all the debris is agitated. Is that a good idea?

I have been fighting an early light outbreak of GHA, nothing major yet, but I see some small green hairlike tuffs, among the detritus. So, I’m a little nervous my scrubbing might cause the small amounts of GHA to actually spread.

Just wanted to throw this out there, and see if anyone had any thought or suggestions.

 

[BootyPup]

I don't have any advice for the detritus but as for the GHA I fought a bad battle for a long time after right about my year mark, I eventually used Vibrant reef cleaner to get rid of it and it has been gone since. If your GHA gets worse bad you should check it out.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Good water movement will limit adhesion of detritus to surface.
What lighting are you using and how long are they on?
Vacuuming will clean up surface nicely and a turkey baster opposed to toothbrush should clean off surfaces nicely.

CERITH snail often at pet stores will actually comb through and consume detrious

 

[mtraylor]

What size tank do you have? Do you have a sump? Can you get a filter sock in the sump? I would recommend putting a 200 micron filter sock on the overflows coming into your sump. First I would get yourself a pump hooked to a hose and put that in the aquarium and blow off all the rock work to get the detritus suspended in the water column. Most should work its way into overflow and into sump and into filter sock. Then start scrubbing away. It will not hurt anything. Once done scrubbing, blow the rock work off again.

Now you say you have a clean up crew. Just from my experience...most people say that, but they don't really have enough. Please post size of aquarium and clean up crew. Mexican Turbos can go a long way, but you will need allot of them.

 

[Klyph]

What size tank do you have? Do you have a sump? Can you get a filter sock in the sump? I would recommend putting a 200 micron filter sock on the overflows coming into your sump. First I would get yourself a pump hooked to a hose and put that in the aquarium and blow off all the rock work to get the detritus suspended in the water column. Most should work its way into overflow and into sump and into filter sock. Then start scrubbing away. It will not hurt anything. Once done scrubbing, blow the rock work off again.

Now you say you have a clean up crew. Just from my experience...most people say that, but they don't really have enough. Please post size of aquarium and clean up crew. Mexican Turbos can go a long way, but you will need allot of them.

I have a 32 gallon bio cube. A good bit of rock work in it. My cleanup crew includes probably 15 hermit crabs, three Emerald crabs, and an unknown number of snails. For some reason my snails seem to be dying off. Not sure why. I’m afraid of getting much more of a cleanup crew, is I don’t want additional things to start dying off. What are your thoughts?


As far as sump pump I have a traditional overflow that does go through a filter sock and a carbon bag.

 

[mtraylor]

Oh ok. Well it sounds like you have a pretty good clean up crew for your size aquarium. Your snails are probably being eaten by your crabs. I had some success with red legs not bothering snails, but it depended on the size. I totally gave up on using crabs for clean up crew. Even without crabs, you will still find dead snails for whatever reason though. The crabs are not that great for detritus. Snails are better.

On new aquariums crabs are great to get the claws in places and cleanup stuff for you. After that, snails are the way to go IMO. For your size aquarium, I would suggest getting yourself a turkey baster. This will allow you to suspend the detritus into the water column. This is one option to get it circulating to get to your filter.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Either predators or likely lack of food source. They need more than detrious for survival.
Try algae wafers or nori sheets between a rock for supplemental food source

 

[PatW]

I find that I can remove most stuff from the rock by blowing on it with a large turkey baster. Scrubbing rocks with a stiff brush is more aggressive. I find that there are some more noxious algae that grazers do not like. But most of the nasty tasting stuff can be removed by baster or brush. With that stuff removed, the clean up crew will make short work of the remaining good tasting algae and your rocks will be pretty clean, assuming you have adequate clean up crew.

If your nitrate and or phosphate levels are too low, you can get Cyanobacteria that tends to thrive in low nutrient situations. Your phosphate levels should be measurable. I like mine to be above 20 parts per billion and under 35 parts per billion. Nitrates seem best at between 1 a and 5 ppm. I believe other algae like hair algae out compete cyano bacteria at even low nutrient levels like the above. My snails do a good job eating up hair algae.