Detritus management

[kase1084]

Hi reefers,

I’m wondering what everyone does in terms of managing ugly detritus at the bottom of the tank? I have a bare bottom mixed system and I am tempted (and I can almost imagine the horror of my LFS owner at suggesting this) to get substrate because I hate how visible detritus build up is on a bare bottom tank!

I have tried adding more flow. I already have two Red Sea Reef Wave 25s at either end. I have also added two sicce wave makers at the back and aimed them down. I have recently started stirring up the detritus with a coral feeder in the hope that it’ll be suspended in the water column and skimmed out. My skimmer has been offline for a few weeks because my nutrients bottomed out to 0/0 nitrates:phosphate, and I thought that might be it, but excess detritus has always been a problem. But on coming home from a holiday to Fiji for a week, my nitrates and phosphate have shot up to 11/0.15- and I am managing a nice little algae bloom at the moment! The price of a holiday.

Other than adding flow, is there something else someone can suggest? I’m just starting to get some nice coralline algae on the bottom, so I’m hoping whatever I use won’t discourage that.

Thanks,
Kasey

Red Sea 420l G2
Nitrates 10
Phosphate 0.0 (gah, bottomed out again after a big water change!)
SG 35ppm
Temp 25 degrees celsius
Mg 1350
Alk 8.9dkh
Calcium 490

 

[LiverockRocks]

A thin layer of TBS sand would look nice!

If you want to stay bare bottom, consider decreasing the amount of bare by adding rubble rock/small nano rock at the base of the scape.

Edit addition - when doing weekly maintenance, siphon out detritus. Try to aim powerheads, so it blows into one of the corners, making it easy to siphon out.

 

[Bruttall]

I like the Sand Bottom on a reef Tank, but I get your frustration with keeping that sand "White" looking. 8 ft long 300g Display, mixed reef. I really thought keeping my sand looking white and pristine would be a major hassle, but I was incredibly surprised by how well Nature itself solved this issue for me. I Have a ton of snails and crabs, a couple of Cucumbers, but what keeps my Sand pretty is a half a dozen Conch Snails and 2 Sand sifter Goby's, a Diamond Watchmen and a Yellow Head.
In 2 1/2 years I have not stirred my sand bed, or run a sand vacuum, not once.

Couple of recent pics of some of my stock.

 

[Project1004]

Even if you add the sand, those detritus will just show up on the top of the sand. You probably want to remove them much as you can.

One way you can do without water changing is by using a hose and siphoning out the detritus into the sump using a filter sock to catch the them. You can use activated carbon in the socks to help removing some of extra that gets released from them.

Use turkey baster to blow off the rocks over time and continue to remove whatever comes out of your tank.