Detritus sensitive to coral...how to stop?

[bigdrew]

I have two clarkii clowns that evidently cannot resist stirring the sand bed. All. Of. The. Time.

It seems to be making my devil’s hand leather retract all of its polyps for weeks at a time. It’ll finally open up and then when I check back on it, the polyps will be filled with grit and detritus and it’ll then close for another week(s) +. The polyps pulsate when open, so it only pulsates for a few hours before the clowns stir it up long enough to clog the polyps and stop the pulsating again.

The detritus and stirring of sand doesn’t seem to be impacting my 4 varieties of zoas, 2 varieties of shrooms or my finger leather.

Do I just need to catch the clowns somehow and remove them? Any other ideas?

FYI: I try not to run a filter sock right now because I am attempting to increase my nitrate levels. I also haven’t run a skimmer or a filter sock in 4+ weeks. Finally, I am registering some small levels of nitrate. All other corals are expanding and growing excellently despite the tank being a low nutrient system at the moment.

parameters:

1.023 salt
Nitrate .5
Temp: 79
Ph: 8.2
Haven’t measured phosphate this week.

 

[reef lover]

Can you move him up higher?

 

[Murica]

Can you get more flow where the detritus is collecting so that way it stays suspended and gets filtered out of the display

 

[madweazl]

Vacuum it out; it isn't adding to your nitrates and your current levels are high enough to keep whatever corals you want. The hoopla about needing 5-10ppm nitrates is bologna (my tank is almost always <.5pp and my last ATI ICP indicated .01 but I have no idea what they used to test it). Measurable is good enough.

 

[bigdrew]

Thanks for everyone's input and the moderators for bumping. I am going to attempt to 1) move it higher 2) adjust flow to hit it and 3) my corals are growing great, so perhaps there is a simple, "mechanical" fix like flow or location adjustment. Thanks for everyone's input.

 

[brandon429]

What about keep the clowns and rinse the sand until it’s snowglobe clear, then put it back. Only clean sand grains kicked about, no harm

 

[bigdrew]

What about keep the clowns and rinse the sand until it’s snowglobe clear, then put it back. Only clean sand grains kicked about, no harm

Rise with RODI water in a large bucket? How have you done this? I think that’s a good idea.

 

[brandon429]

This is thirty pages of it, not to flood but so you can see disassembly reassembly patterns that are skip cycle work with no loss

its reef tank surgery, risky, but not when done right. Thirty pages no aquarium loss due to how thorough we are during cleaning

 

[brandon429]

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[bigdrew]

@brandon429 thanks for your help

 

[Jase4224]

Would be easier to buy a sand vacuum.. also if your corals are happy then don’t change a thing except move the coral experiencing problems. You would hate to make an adjustment or chase numbers to the detriment of all your other happy corals..