Sludge - remove or not?

[Steverd]

The back bottoms of this frag tank is building up this sludge like stuff.
This is a glass bottom tank, no sand. Should I leave this sludge stuff for the snails to crawl
around in, or vacuum it out? This frag tank is 95% Zoanthids.

Thank you

 

[ZoWhat]

Its reef ash.

Leftover substance from completely exhausted organics.

Its innate and nontoxic. More of an eyesore. Remove it if you can. Stirring it up into the water column will also find it's way into and out of your skimmer

This is why people use filter socks....to filter this innate stuff out


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[Retro Reefer]

I would vacuum it out when you do your water changes.

 

[lejeune981]

Its reef ash.

Leftover substance from completely exhausted organics.

Its innate and nontoxic. More of an eyesore. Remove it if you can. Stirring it up into the water column will also find it's way into and out of your skimmer

This is why people use filter socks....to filter this innate stuff out


.

I have a layer of brown... I dunno how to describe it other than a brown powdery sludge in my fuge... I'll have to take a picture tomorrow when I get home..its full of pods and mysid shrimps.. so I've always wondered if it was detritus or an inert "stuff"
Tank is like 18 months old.. many algae outbreaks in the past.. but none besides macro I grow to feed tangs now.. and my P04 levels are always kinda high.. with or without gfo .09 without .07 with nitrates are steady at 5

Anyways.. I've always wondered if the brown stuff is the cause for higher p04 or if it's just my systems happy spot considering everything is doing great

I'll add a pic of the reef... and get a pic of the stuff tomorrow... it's a xenia fuge btw

And not trying to hijack.. figured my stuff is prolly the same as the Ops