Sump cleaning or maintaince

[Dana]

Hey guys just wondering how and if you clean your sump. The sump is new for me, and it looks like there's ALOT of brown muck at the bottom. Thanks

 

[46gReef]

I have a sump/refugium, I never clean it besides harvesting the macro that's in there....if ther's a lot of crap settling down there you couold add a small powerhead just to keep things moving....

 

[Dana]

Yeah I threw a power head in there to move stuff around and it ended up making a mess in my display tank. Hope I don't kill anything. I took the power head out needless to say

 

[46gReef]

You should be okay, when I do mess around in my fuge I just put a fine net in front of my return so it catches the most of the junk before it settles in my display

 

[Dana]

Ok thanks -)

 

[46gReef]

No problem, you may want to revisit the powerhead idea to eliminate the detritus build up....

 

[GuvNa-Ci-H2o]

I 2nd the powerhead in the sump. What I normally do when I do a water change is to 1st turn off all pumps add a powerhead in the sump keep my reactor and skimmer on and allow them to clean up down below. While this is happening I clean the DT. Scrape glass, rearrange corals/rocks, blow rocks with powerheads and then do my water change. After I do all of this I check the sump and if it still looks dirty I plug in the powerhead and heater and let it sit for a little more.
Thats how I clean my sump.