water changes and cleaning the tank

[philr]

I do regular water changes of about 3-4 gallons of water every 4 days. My tank is 90 gallons, and has approx 100lbs of live rock. I use a baster to blow out detrius from behind rocks, and the light smattering of sand on the tank bottom. I have place the live rock so as to trap as little sand as possible below it to aviod dead spots. My question regards the turkey baster. When I use it on the live rock I get alot of fine detrius coming out of the holes in the rock and from the little crevices in the rock. This will cloud the water for at least 15 minutes before the filter clears it all up. I am concerned about how much of this fine particulate 'sand' like detritius comes out of my rocks. Can anyone offer any explanation?

 

[ReefPiracy]

I like high flow as a good way to keep most things clean. I run two mp40 full out for a few hours. The particles will always find lower flow spots and settle. Just nature of the beast. I like to use a filter siphon to clean part of the sand bed in the tank and fuge. Everything has it place in the tank if you like it or not. I don't have much coming out of my tank but I've seen lower flow tanks and when you move a live rock its like snow in the tank.

 

[Mike J.]

What you are describing is very normal. And, yes, high flow will reduce it a little.

 

[philr]

Thanks SWW, and MikeJ. I often of other reef keepers had similar experiences. I have a red sea wave maker. I used to run 4 power heads off it and yes water movement was great. That presented me with 2 problems: first I added a bubble tip anenome to the tank, and it got sucked into a power head. Second the power heads simply didnt last long with the constant on/off of the wavemaker. I used 2 different high end brands. I am now experimenting with a mesh chemical bag over the power head to keep the anenome out. This requires reqular cleaning of the media bag. Second I am going to have to bite the bullet and go for high end vortech mp40 pumps. Thanks for the input.

 

[Mike J.]

I just put a WP25 on a 55 gallon and have to say I am very impressed. With just one pump I have great wave action. It's very silent also.

 

[philr]

Hey Mike, thanks for the info. I had been using koralia, and coralife pumps. What brand is WP25 im looking for it online now.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Jebao WP-25 8000L Wave Maker

 

[philr]

Seems that is a wavemaker pump setup. Will the pump work with other wavemakers? I already have a red sea wavemaker.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Plugs are different, that I can see. I don't think they will plug in, unless its possible to rewire them to your other wavemaker plug. That one maybe someone has done. I've not seen that one yet.

 

[philr]

Well I appreciate the info. I could probably rewire it to a standard plug. Electricity is pretty basic: positive,negative, ground/neutral. The main object here is that I realize without doubt that I must improve the circulation in the tank. May I impose another question to your experience? How often does the protein skimmer need to be adjusted? It seems to need almost daily adjustments right now. Well at least 3 -4 times weekly.