our tanks are filthy!

[Dtackett]

So some of you have been following my 1 gallon reef bowl and know my maintenance, but for those who don't this is what I do...

• Weekly 100% water change
• weekly flushing of the rocks to remove detritus
• top off as needed, normally about every 5-6 days

yeah... that's it. but wait, I do a 100% water change, plus flush another half gallon of water through the rocks allowing it to overflow prior to the water change... so I guess its more like a 150% water change. and wow I realized something this week..

this week I was in a hurry so I just simply drained the water and poured in the new water (temp and salinity matched) and I was amazed to see the flurry of detritus kicked up. it seemed like it would never settle!

to give you a little info on the tank, there are no fish, no crabs, no shrimp, no snails. ive got 3 heads of Duncan, and 2 frags of zoas. that's it. I spot feed all 3 frags about an hour before the water change. now, because I have so little coral in it I am able to feed lightly and only feed what the coral will eat. very simple tank.

3 frags were able to produce enough detritus that my tank looked like a flurry of brown nastiness. I ended up draining, flushing and refilling my tank because I couldn't stand how nasty it was..


the point of this thread is simple. I want yall to realize how dirty our tanks are. no matter how much maintenance you do, there is still an insane amount of crud in our tanks. don't be afraid to blast your rocks and low flow areas every once in a while. don't be afraid to do large water changes as needed. this 10-20% rule of thumb is not set in stone. if you can pick up a rock in your tank, shake it off, and it look like a crud filled blizzard, you should probably blast all your rocks and do a large water change.

 

[DeniseAndy]

I am always amazed at the debris in my little 6 gallon when I do a sand stir and rock blow. YUCK!

 

[Dtackett]

I am always amazed at the debris in my little 6 gallon when I do a sand stir and rock blow. YUCK!

yeah, its something I rarely paid attention to in the past. even in my big tanks I would blast off the rocks and change the flow up every few months but never really paid much attention. now i wish i had figured this out sooner.

 

[DeniseAndy]

I will take my 6 gallon and do 100% water changes and change the sand even every couple months. Sounds crazy, but helps keep debris down. This is a traveling tank taken out for people to see, so needs to be clean.

My main tank I am terrified to even think about the sand bed. I stir it up and vacuum every now and then, but after 6 years, I only do a bit at a time. Just time for it to get filthy again.

 

[kattz]

Moved, and I had to take down our 90 gallon reef tank. I sold the tank cheap as well as all the livestock, And took a huge loss on it. The tank had what we call "old tank syndrome".

When I got down to the 1 inch of sand in the bottom of the tank and about 2 gallons of water, things didn't look too bad. However, when I stirred up the sand the water turned black. The water was very very very dirty and my 300 gallon deep dimension tank will not have sand in it as a result of this.

 

[Dtackett]

Moved, and I had to take down our 90 gallon reef tank. I sold the tank cheap as well as all the livestock, And took a huge loss on it. The tank had what we call "old tank syndrome".

When I got down to the 1 inch of sand in the bottom of the tank and about 2 gallons of water, things didn't look too bad. However, when I stirred up the sand the water turned black. The water was very very very dirty and my 300 gallon deep dimension tank will not have sand in it as a result of this.

good call.

 

[Sabellafella]

If i remember this thread by next week i would love to snap a photo of the bucket of detritus that i collect, i have my apex feed mode full blast every pump on my system and take a mj to the rocks and bed to send it to my sump, i do this every month and its unreal the amount of junk that comes from my tank, and i run filter socks !!

 

[Dtackett]

If i remember this thread by next week i would love to snap a photo of the bucket of detritus that i collect, i have my apex feed mode full blast every pump on my system and take a mj to the rocks and bed to send it to my sump, i do this every month and its unreal the amount of junk that comes from my tank, and i run filter socks !!

people don't realize it because they see their water and say "look how crystal clear it is!" or they look at their test kits that read good, or see how nasty their skimmate is and say well it must be getting it all... what they don't realize is how much is settling on the rocks and in the sand. that stuff builds up over time and leads to issues down the road.

 

[Sabellafella]

people don't realize it because they see their water and say "look how crystal clear it is!" or they look at their test kits that read good, or see how nasty their skimmate is and say well it must be getting it all... what they don't realize is how much is settling on the rocks and in the sand. that stuff builds up over time and leads to issues down the road.

Question , do you kno if you could use the detritus for plant fertilizer, i used freshwater detritus before and it was THE best fertilizer ive ever used , ive never asked anyone or bothered looking it up

 

[brandon429]

Really good thread I agree

It's fun to hash out the steps for cleaning in large tanks where access is tough and a recycle wants to kill everything and leave you penniless

I find that to occur when you put off, then begin work. When day one onward is rough handling, detritus get out, I see it never happens

its walking a necessary line to do deep cleanings and I feel lack of them comprises 80% of wrecked tank or wrecked sandbed problems.

 

[DeniseAndy]

I began pulling sand out of my 210g about a year ago. I take some out maybe 2-3 times a year. I began with a good 2in- 3in due to some sand dwellers, I am down at least an inch. I really want it down to 1 inch most places and more where the wrasse sleeps. I am just too lazy to do it more often. It is a lot more work than simply doing a water change.

I like sand, but a lot of maintenance goes into it. My tank is gorg dominant, so sand is really a good thing, because the gorgs love the gunk I get out of it.

However, after doing a 85% water change on my 40g when I was battling hair algae, I love the idea of just really getting down and cleaning every few months on smaller systems with a huge water change. I would have done more, but I only had about 35 gallons made.

I gotta say, my water is not crystal clear. I guess feeding 20 times a day does that. (nps)

 

[Dtackett]

Question , do you kno if you could use the detritus for plant fertilizer, i used freshwater detritus before and it was THE best fertilizer ive ever used , ive never asked anyone or bothered looking it up

yeah you can. remember, when the Indians were teaching the pilgrims how to grow corn in basically dead soil, they would use the guts out of the fish they caught on the coast to fertilize them. if you collect the detritus and rinse them with fresh water youll be fine.

Really good thread I agree

It's fun to hash out the steps for cleaning in large tanks where access is tough and a recycle wants to kill everything and leave you penniless

I find that to occur when you put off, then begin work. When day one onward is rough handling, detritus get out, I see it never happens

its walking a necessary line to do deep cleanings and I feel lack of them comprises 80% of wrecked tank or wrecked sandbed problems.

I agree, doing things the way we do in a bigger tank would be difficult, but there are a lot of things they can do in the bigger tanks to help prevent the buildup.

 

[recess62]

Question , do you kno if you could use the detritus for plant fertilizer, i used freshwater detritus before and it was THE best fertilizer ive ever used , ive never asked anyone or bothered looking it up

I do the same. The water from a fresh water tank is the bees knees of fertilizer and it is free