Quite some time ago I waged war that I’m convinced I cannot win, nor am I in any way certain that it made any sense to even do so in the first place.
I’m talking about the hyper aggressive mechanical filtration of aquarium detritus. From filter socks to roller mats, automatic roller mats, fleece filters, sponges, aggressively wet skimming and even more outlandish methods I have really gone after this with everything I had.
A while back I noticed that my water had a faint brown tint to it, more so than clean new water, and that I would occasionally have to blow what would seem like an unending amount of dust off the rocks in some of my grow out tanks, so I guess that’s kind of where it all started. But after all the effort, I'm asking myself is it really necessary? Is there any disadvantage to having detritus collect on the bottom of our sumps or exist in the water column enough to keep my water just a faint hue of brown
And now, about a year or two later, having spent countless available man hours, washing and rinsing filter, socks, sucking siphoning, starving my fish even and so on, I am not convinced in any way that my efforts have benefited my system at all. That no amount of mechanical filtration will essentially get me “caught up” to the suspended detritus load in my system, and while I’d hope to see my filter felt get a little fainter and go a little longer between cleanings, week after week. A sure sign that I was in fact, getting a leg up on this battle, it never happened. I have had no indication whatsoever that I ever rounded a corner on eliminating the superfluous detritus floating freely in my water column. I am pretty convinced that my efforts have not achieved anything visible or tangible as far as over all system health or water clarity.
Should I consider the stalemate a loss and just give up on this one? I'm honestly super curious to hear about any efforts you guys have made to eliminate detritus and how it really went. If and how you succeeded and by what metric would you consider success even, and maybe where I failed.
I’m talking about the hyper aggressive mechanical filtration of aquarium detritus. From filter socks to roller mats, automatic roller mats, fleece filters, sponges, aggressively wet skimming and even more outlandish methods I have really gone after this with everything I had.
A while back I noticed that my water had a faint brown tint to it, more so than clean new water, and that I would occasionally have to blow what would seem like an unending amount of dust off the rocks in some of my grow out tanks, so I guess that’s kind of where it all started. But after all the effort, I'm asking myself is it really necessary? Is there any disadvantage to having detritus collect on the bottom of our sumps or exist in the water column enough to keep my water just a faint hue of brown
And now, about a year or two later, having spent countless available man hours, washing and rinsing filter, socks, sucking siphoning, starving my fish even and so on, I am not convinced in any way that my efforts have benefited my system at all. That no amount of mechanical filtration will essentially get me “caught up” to the suspended detritus load in my system, and while I’d hope to see my filter felt get a little fainter and go a little longer between cleanings, week after week. A sure sign that I was in fact, getting a leg up on this battle, it never happened. I have had no indication whatsoever that I ever rounded a corner on eliminating the superfluous detritus floating freely in my water column. I am pretty convinced that my efforts have not achieved anything visible or tangible as far as over all system health or water clarity.
Should I consider the stalemate a loss and just give up on this one? I'm honestly super curious to hear about any efforts you guys have made to eliminate detritus and how it really went. If and how you succeeded and by what metric would you consider success even, and maybe where I failed.
