White powder?

Adam113 · Dec 23, 2016

My tank is about 2 months old with a few LPS corals, snails, 2 clowns, a fire fish, hermits, and emerald crabs. I just noticed this off white powdery looking substance. Any idea? Just in two small areas.

reeferfoxx · Dec 23, 2016

Looks like detritus build up? Might need to increase flow to those areas.

twilliard · Dec 23, 2016

reeferfoxx said:
Looks like detritus build up? Might need to increase flow to those areas.

I thought the same thing

Adam113 · Dec 23, 2016

reeferfoxx said:
Looks like detritus build up? Might need to increase flow to those areas.

twilliard said:
I thought the same thing

Thanks guys. What can I do to increase flow? It's just a 29 gallon biocube. Would a second powerhead be overkill?

Roboson · Dec 23, 2016

reeferfoxx said:
Looks like detritus build up? Might need to increase flow to those areas.

It's gotta go somewhere [emoji6]

twilliard · Dec 23, 2016

Flow will be dependant on inhabitants also IMO to get the best flow is to point 2 small powerheads aiming to the top front center of the tank. This creates downward flow under the rocks. Then you have to have an export method as this stuff stays suspended.

reeferfoxx · Dec 23, 2016

Rock placement can also fix the issue. Intermittent wave patterns can also help suspend detritus, if a controllable wave pump were present. The cubes All in one filtration design will help filter it out.

Roboson said:
It's gotta go somewhere [emoji6]

Controlling were it goes helps too. Though, since it is all nicely placed where you can see it, just taking a vacuum hose to it will help with having increase nutrients later on.

Jam · Dec 24, 2016

It looks like waste from something is the rock behind that a live rock? I had a worm or something living in one of my rocks that would dump waste out of the rock and it looked just like that white stuff in your pic, and it would pile up just like that.