How long does it take for detritus to decompose?

[CookieRdReef]

How long does it take for uneaten frozen food, pellets, fish poop, to decompose is saltwater? Is it a few days? A week? A month? Is there a months worth of uneaten food in my tank breaking down and releasing nutrients at any given time? I'm surprised I could not find thread on this.

 

[ZoWhat]

Well... if you have hermits... it'll get eaten by them in a matter of 2 days.

Now fish food has a certain level of ASH which is just fibrous debris that nothing eats and collects over time in the substrate That's the stuff that gets sucked up when you suction-clean the substrate

 

[Tonycass12]

Lots of variables in this. Type of food, where its settling, flow over dead areas, sand or no sand or export methods for solid waste like filter socks(how often they get changed even adds another variable). For example if some food gets down into the sand and you don't vac your sand then you create an anaerobic layer with no 02 to feed the bacteria that break down waste. At the same rate I would expect to see that most pellets or flakes would break down multiple times faster then meaty frozen foods. Fish waste even faster since its already been broken down to some extent.

My anecdotal opinion....

 

[CookieRdReef]

Yes there are definitely tons of variables which play a role here. So if uneaten pellets find their way into the rock or sand where nothing touches it and flow is very low, could it stay there for years before releasing nutrients?