What’s your opinion on the role of detritus in a reef tank

[MnFish1]

Some people search far and wide for the most useful CUC to tackle detritus. Others see it as a nitrate factory. However, detritus does play an important role in let’s say, a well-established mixed reef.

Thoughts?

I am not paranoid about it - (i.e. trying to get rid of 'everything') - but when I do water changes I siphon out what I can get out. I do not think it plays any role in the tank - unfortunately - in my tank - I have a large Harliquin tusk - which 'cleans up' any CUC - so I'm the CUC

 

[MnFish1]

I have a microscope e in fact 1 high power one low power and periodically remove a tiny amount of sand and ir detritus. I can vouch for all manner of worns and other creatures that inhabit them. Detritus become inherent within a couple of days and unless you have a roller mat then you not removing so much of it. However, with the right filtration I see no need to remove it and certainly don't have a need for a roller mat.iuse an ATS a skimmer and on Oxydator. My water is gin clear but my sand has plenty of detritus. I give my sand a blasting from time to time as many SPS feed on detritus so free food as well.

PS - I agree - I find that with there oxydator - there is much less detritus accumulation.

 

[Lasse]

PS - I agree - I find that with there oxydator - there is much less detritus accumulation.

I think it as much as without but it is oxidized and contain no organic matter

Sincerely Lasse

 

[atoll]

I think it as much as without but it is oxidized and contain no organic matter

Sincerely Lasse

Yes I still have plenty of detritus within my sand it's just not a problem to me.

 

[brandon429]

Detritus in the open, oxygenated, play in it like snow.


Detritus from up under

Let's see a home move thread for a few pages where entrants move reefs home to home and they specifically did not rinse out anoxic zone waste, once stratified now de stratified but moved over

We can find isolated cases of that working but we can't find cases where more than one move live time is collected in a thread bc nobody will make an unrinsed tank move job thread. anoxic zone detritus kills


If your reef design called for upwelling that which shouldn't be upwelled have a plan

 

[Ike]

It serves as a food source for too many things to want to eliminate it, but it's not too impactful unless you have too much or too little. I think remove it when it builds up, and it will build up if you have a healthy tank, but going crazy removing it regularly or thinking it has some important biological component and letting it build up is silly.

 

[MnFish1]

It serves as a food source for too many things to want to eliminate it, but it's not too impactful unless you have too much or too little. I think remove it when it builds up, and it will build up if you have a healthy tank, but going crazy removing it regularly or thinking it has some important biological component and letting it build up is silly.

Add one of the detritus 'removers' - you may have a problem..... quite quickly

 

[MnFish1]

Detritus in the open, oxygenated, play in it like snow.


Detritus from up under

Let's see a home move thread for a few pages where entrants move reefs home to home and they specifically did not rinse out anoxic zone waste, once stratified now de stratified but moved over

We can find isolated cases of that working but we can't find cases where more than one move live time is collected in a thread bc nobody will make an unrinsed tank move job thread. anoxic zone detritus kills


If your reef design called for upwelling that which shouldn't be upwelled have a plan

Brandon - translate this into something people can understand. You have your cases - but - we dont

 

[MnFish1]

Brandon - translate this into something people can understand. You have your cases - but - we dont

Btw - for example - play it like snow....

 

[MnFish1]

Btw - for example - play it like snow....

My comment made no sense..... I meant play it like we know

 

[Stigigemla]

In my experience detritus can be good or bad.
You can see it as a sign of a tank beginning to mature. No detritus dont add sensitive corals.

Old detritus from 12 years to new does have a lot of nutrition. I cleaned an 12 year old tank but left detritus in a bucket for a few days. It was about 5 inches deep in the bucket but from 0 to 1 inch in the tank. Light grey in color but after a few days in the bucket it began to foul and created a lot of hydrogen sulfide. The whole room smelled and I had great problems to rinse it out with tap water in the sink because of the smell. The tank have always had a balanced amount of fishes to keep nitrate at a solid low level. A few years of the 12 I had used GFO but normally the phosphate level kept itself around 0.06.
Old detritus definitely has a lot of organic waste.

 

[atoll]

In my experience detritus can be good or bad.
You can see it as a sign of a tank beginning to mature. No detritus dont add sensitive corals.

Old detritus from 12 years to new does have a lot of nutrition. I cleaned an 12 year old tank but left detritus in a bucket for a few days. It was about 5 inches deep in the bucket but from 0 to 1 inch in the tank. Light grey in color but after a few days in the bucket it began to foul and created a lot of hydrogen sulfide. The whole room smelled and I had great problems to rinse it out with tap water in the sink because of the smell. The tank have always had a balanced amount of fishes to keep nitrate at a solid low level. A few years of the 12 I had used GFO but normally the phosphate level kept itself around 0.06.
Old detritus definitely has a lot of organic waste.

So you took 1" detritus out of the sand laden with aerobic bacteria then put it in a bucket to a depth of 5" of water allowed to cool with no water movement. The bacteria died and in doing so created a hydrogen sulfide smell. Well no surprise there then.

 

[brandon429]

If the detritus was inert, no rot smell would happen. Proof: take used reef tank sand and rinse it detritus free, set in bucket, no stink. Still has bacteria changed oxidation levels but no substrate to liberate nutrients and rot further. This finding lines up completely with our work threads on dangerous detritus.

I noticed nobody has set up tank move threads where all detritus is kept in place yet (never)


in our sand rinse thread where literally only detritus is the risk, we’ve flipped ten more tanks and added two new pages of work

*its not that everyone’s tank has dangerous forms of decay in tow, it’s that some do and by universally excluding detritus from full tank moves we handle the ones that would have been killed by the mud, even if they’re just a few, 100% consistency means we have narrowed down the recycle risks for sandbeds

now if we could just get someone to make a thread moving and upgrading tanks while never cleaning the sand, we can have something to compare outcomes and that will show an interesting dynamic for detritus in the reef tank.

 

[Stigigemla]

The tank was bare bottom under the live rock. I thought in a tank with no nutrient accumulation the detritus would be nutrient free. But apparently it was a lot of bacteria in it.
So now I think nutrients can accumulate in detritus even if there is no accumulation in the free water.

 

[Katrina71]

I think it's a double edged sword. Benefits in some cases, and deadly in others.

 

[atoll]

If the detritus was inert, no rot smell would happen. Proof: take used reef tank sand and rinse it detritus free, set in bucket, no stink. Still has bacteria changed oxidation levels but no substrate to liberate nutrients and rot further. This finding lines up completely with our work threads on dangerous detritus.

I noticed nobody has set up tank move threads where all detritus is kept in place yet (never)


in our sand rinse thread where literally only detritus is the risk, we’ve flipped ten more tanks and added two new pages of work

*its not that everyone’s tank has dangerous forms of decay in tow, it’s that some do and by universally excluding detritus from full tank moves we handle the ones that would have been killed by the mud, even if they’re just a few, 100% consistency means we have narrowed down the recycle risks for sandbeds

now if we could just get someone to make a thread moving and upgrading tanks while never cleaning the sand, we can have something to compare outcomes and that will show an interesting dynamic for detritus in the reef tank.

Holmes Farley had a sump with a very thick layer of detritus that built up for years he maintains never caused an issue.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed thats what made me change tune between all detritus is bad/ rid it/ to oxygenated vs stratified states of detritus.

if Randy scoops that detritus from top layers and puts in a stilled bucket I bet it won’t rot

same for Pauls detritus that is oxygenated due to rugf


but partially- degraded proteins from stratified less o2 layers, profound smell and strong ability to kill tanks not using rinse cleaning in big work threads.

 

[vlangel]

I believe like everything else in a reef, balance is the key. It seems that I have seen on forums successful reefs where they were bare bottom or the sandbed was constantly stirred to release detritus and those worked. Filter socks or pads caught any detritus that was filtered. Nutrients were either replaced by water changes in the salt or by dosing but many of these reefs were beautiful.

On the flip side, I have also seen, (and experienced) reefs where no socks or pads were used and the DSB was never stirred beyond the first inch at the surface. The reefs could have a heavy bioload but the mature dense live rock along with the DSB and macro algae/seagrass could keep the nitrates and phosphates in check. These tanks if kept in balance can run for decades. They are never prone to dinos which can be a problem with ultra low nutrient tanks. That is the type of reef I personally choose and I have transferred these tanks and moved them without a problem. Yes, much of the anaerobic bacteria must be restarted in the sandbed but I just keep an eye on ammonia for a few weeks (I remedy with water changes and bottled bacteria) and the system seems to stabilize as long as the nitrification cycle is not overly interupted.

So in the end it is all about balance. Detritus or no detritus...both can work as long as balance is maintained.

 

[atoll]

I stopped using any sort of prefiltration some years ago and experience no issues. However, I do use an Oxydator in my sump which may well aid neutralise detritus at least to some extent.
The longest I have run a tank is 7 years due to personal circumstances and upgrades so can't comment personally beyond that.
BRS did a test on detritus and prefiltration and found for prefiltration to be effective the prefiltration need to be cleaned or replaced every day or at least every few days. Well worth checking out that video.

 

[Vette67]

If the detritus was inert, no rot smell would happen. Proof: take used reef tank sand and rinse it detritus free, set in bucket, no stink. Still has bacteria changed oxidation levels but no substrate to liberate nutrients and rot further. This finding lines up completely with our work threads on dangerous detritus.

I noticed nobody has set up tank move threads where all detritus is kept in place yet (never)


in our sand rinse thread where literally only detritus is the risk, we’ve flipped ten more tanks and added two new pages of work

*its not that everyone’s tank has dangerous forms of decay in tow, it’s that some do and by universally excluding detritus from full tank moves we handle the ones that would have been killed by the mud, even if they’re just a few, 100% consistency means we have narrowed down the recycle risks for sandbeds

now if we could just get someone to make a thread moving and upgrading tanks while never cleaning the sand, we can have something to compare outcomes and that will show an interesting dynamic for detritus in the reef tank.

Back in 2001, when I moved my 75 gallon tank from my apartment to my house, I didn't rinse anything. I moved the tank with the live arragonite sand still in the bottom. Even better, I had a leopard wrasse. It of course, buried itself in the sand. I ran my fingers through the sand looking for the fish before I moved. No luck. I thought the fish would be a goner, because of the temperature fluctuations and lack of water. I moved the tank to it's new home, filled it back up with water, and within a day, I saw the wrasse swimming around. So not only did I move the sand, with detritus intact, I disturbed it by fishing around in it looking for a wrasse, and I also disturbed it by moving the tank (you think my brother and I were able to keep the tank perfectly level the whole time without the sand sloshing?) . And no ill effects. Corals and everything opened back up within days and were fine. I wish I would have known at the time that this was a controversial way to move a tank, but I just wanted to maintain as much of the bacteria and macro fauna in the sand that I could. So I'm not sure if this counts as "moving without cleaning the sand", but I'm pretty sure it does. And if I had to move a tank again, I would take as much care as I could to not disturb the sand if possible (might be a little more logistically challenging with a 180 gallon tank). But of course, that was almost 20 years ago, so any details about the move would be just a distant memory....