Accumulated Detritus in the Sump

[Parrottbay]

I am not interested in SPS. I prefer filter feeders like sea apples, flame scallops and sponges which would not work with an SPS tank. None of the items I mentioned are beginner stuff.

Agreed. I changed my answer to better reflect yours. I do think it's possible to do and could be the better option for all coral but I personally have my sump open to see and needs to be semi clean as part of the set up also.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Hello reefers, is there any negative impact in removing detritus in sumps? I’m thinking about vacuuming all the accumulated detritus inside the entire chamber using a wet dry vacuum. Will there be any ammonia spikes or ill effects by doing this? Please help and chime in. Thank you and you all be safe.

If it's not causing a problem just leave it.

disturbing it is more like to create problems then just leaving it alone.

 

[Subsea]

Agreed. I changed my answer to better reflect yours. I do think it's possible to do and could be the better option for all coral but I personally have my sump open to see and needs to be semi clean as part of the set up also.

First, I would never pay hundreds of dollars for a 1” frag of coral. Also, as a Laissez Faire reefkeeper, I choose not to stock corals that are finicky and require large demands on alkalinity management. Passive bufferring from aroggonite sandbed takes care of alkalinity requirements in my system. I focus on nutrient recycling with refugium feeding tank with micro fauna & fana. I just did change mud/macro refugium into cryptic refugium to process DOC. At most, I spend 1 hr a week on maintenance. I choose not to be a slave to my tank, by implementing nutrient recycling strategies to process organic & inorganic nutrients thru multiple food webs to feed larvae to hungry mouths.

Consider this short post written by @Paul B on the benefits of detritus and why MULM is good i a reef tank.

"Mulm" in a reef tank

www.thereeftank.com

Mulm" in a reef tank​

I think one of the most important, and least understood or mentioned things in a reef tank is "mulm". That stuff that grows in the dark portions of a tank if it is set up long enough. "Mulm" is a combination of algae, sponges, bacteria, pods, worms, detritus, poop and any thing else that can be propagated or grown in the dark. I realize most people would immediately get out the sponge, razor blade or grenade to remove it but there is a word I like to use to describe those people. That word is "wrong". Mulm is a natural product that you will find in the sea all over the world. Our tanks run on bacteria, algae and a food chain. Bacteria and a food chain are dependent on having a place to reproduce. Mulm is the perfect place. Rocks and glass are flat surfaces that are only two dimensional. Mulm makes these places three dimensional allowing much more space for bacteria and microscopic organisms to grow and do the macarana. (Then love to dance) Pods, which are needed for any small fish also need to eat and their numbers are directly related to how much food they can get their hands on (or whatever pods use to eat with) The more food, the more pods, the more pods, the easier to keep smaller fish. Larger fish such as copperbands and angels also eat pods.​

Many people try to keep fish such as pipefish, mandarins or other dragonettes in a sterile tank and while feeding them a couple of times a day with tiger pods or some other expensive food. Those types of fish will not live for long in such a tank and they certainly won't spawn which I consider the "only" criteria to determine the state of health for any paired fish.
Mulm (after a while, maybe a few years) should grow on the back and sides of glass as well as under rocks.
Here in this picture of my clingfish, the mulm appears green. It is really brownish and that fish is on the side of my tank. I brightened up the picture and turned it sideways because it was in the dark and the fish was hard to see.
There is a thick layer of it on the back of my tank where my mandarins and pipefish like to hunt. My long spined urchin also grazes there most of the time as there is not much algae in my tank for him to eat. He is many years old as are the mandarins and pipefish and they are dependent on this food source.
A sterile tank IMO is the biggest problem we have keeping certain fish healthy.
Sterile is good in an operating room but very bad in a tank.

 

[Koigula]

Yes, I have not seen pipefish in a full blown SPS tank. I have seen them in a mangrove tank with mulm involved intentionally. LPS and most soft corals might succeed or thrive this way, I can definately say mine did when I kept these types of organisms.

I keep SPS and have better success keeping a clean sump and a clean barebottom tank but definately this is not a beginner set up or task. The groups that show how to set up good tanks for SPS success are deinately out there. Many promote this. It is a game of some science and some folktales to get best results. Phd's and green thumbs are two very different things.

I would never spend 100s on 1" frags and you generaly do not have too. It is more of a game of availibility. Charlotte NC has a few great store and I use really use just one vendor for value packs. 80% success rate can be had online and close to 100% in local stores so far.

I have more stress in keeping hobby grade equipment going than meeting orgnisms basic requirements for success. That would be a different thread. I have equipment that last 10 years and some that last 6 months.

 

[nicodim55]

Do you have a Hanna measure of Phosphates? If your PO4 is depleted, it can be hard for your system to process nitrates as fast as you are adding them.

The other reason I ask is that before you go knocking back nitrates, you need to know your phosphates or phosphorus.

If you have an abundance of PO4, then I would look into "carbon dosing" with 80 proof vodka. I quickly knocked down NO3 over the course of 3-4 weeks this way. Totally natural, easy to administer, and as long as you don't overdose it is totally safe. Oh, you MUST HAVE a decent protein skimmer to remove all the bacterial gunk. You will be shocked how much thicker the skimmate becomes.

But I repeat: you need to know your phosphate level first as carbon dosing will remove some PO4 as well.

My phos is at .25 nitrates hovers between 40-50 according to API. I don’t have a Hanna checker. I am currently vodka dosing