excessive detritus issue...

[mexicanjavafish]

As the topic states, I have a serious detritus issue in my sump, and I can't seem to do anything about it. I don't think that I am overfeeding, and I have a clean-up crew in there, and while that helps a little, it's not doing much. I've also tried a filter sock but that gets clogged very quickly, causing it to fill up with water and making the water level in my sump dangerously low....like below my heater and other equipment are.

 

Basically I need something fairly simple, and as clean as possible.....large messes will get me into serious trouble.

 

Suggestions and ideas would be greatly appreciated

[trble81]

Has the issue been there the entire time or did it just start not all that long ago? Basically has something changed to cause the increase all of a sudden (sand bed being disturbed a ton, addition of substrate, Jason tossing Christmas scraps into your tank, etc)...

[Pat_13]

Why is your water level changing when the sock fills up? Do you have it completely out of the water?

 

Can you just vacuum it out when you do water changes?

 

You can always create more flow so it gets pumped back up for your corals.

[www.fishnreef.com]

With your kind of bio-load, you should not have much detritus. What kind of detritus do you have? Algae? What is your flow rate into your sump? Is something being disturbed? As others have mentioned. Is this on-going or recent? What are your water changes? How long do you leave the filter sock in? How fine is the filter sock?

[Jon Lazar]

My filter sock is mostly submerged all the time, so when the sock gets clogged and the water spills over the top, it doesn't really make a difference.

 

I only vacuum detritus from my sump once or twice a year, and there's usually not much to vacuum.

 

Jon

[scott711]

what diameter filter sock are you using? I have a small powerhead in my sump to keep detritus from settling down there.

[lanman]

It might not SEEM like it - but you CAN siphon out of your sump; even if it is on the floor. You can't siphon a lot - but you can siphon up to the level of the water in the sump. So start a siphon, and move the end of the hose around to suck out the detritus. Good time to do it - water changes!

 

bob

[Jon Lazar]

It might not SEEM like it - but you CAN siphon out of your sump; even if it is on the floor. You can't siphon a lot - but you can siphon up to the level of the water in the sump. So start a siphon, and move the end of the hose around to suck out the detritus. Good time to do it - water changes!

 

bob

 

When I "siphon" my sump, I use a Maxijet 1200 powerhead with 1/2" ID tubing attached to the output nozzle.

[Grav]

Boom, Jon has it right there

Edited December 29, 2008 by Grav

[flowerseller]

I think the sump is a perfect place to have detritus settle. Rather see it settle there than in the main tank.

Siphoning off during a water change is the key. I do not use a power head simply add water till the sump is mostly full and siphon it off. By filling the sump, it adds more pressure on the siphon allowing you to siphon longer which allows more detritus to be pulled out.

[SeanCallan]

I think the sump is a perfect place to have detritus settle. Rather see it settle there than in the main tank.

Siphoning off during a water change is the key. I do not use a power head simply add water till the sump is mostly full and siphon it off. By filling the sump, it adds more pressure on the siphon allowing you to siphon longer which allows more detritus to be pulled out.

 

From my experiences I find that the best results come from topping off my system to where it should be, siphoning out all the bad stuff I want, and then adding new fresh (and new) salt water.

 

If you add your new salt water in before you do the water change you're not going to get the full advantage of the water change. The nutrients and bacteria will be in lower concentrations and you won't be able to remove as much as before.

 

You can always stir up the detritus around the siphon to maximize removal

[jamesbuf]

Use a maxijet to clean out your sump. Hook up one of these:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Loc-Line-2-1-2-Flare-N...93%3A2|294%3A50

to the intake of the maxijet, and you can vacuum the bottom perfectly clean. I saw BRK doing this with their tanks so I copied their idea. Works great.

[flowerseller]

If you add your new salt water in before you do the water change you're not going to get the full advantage of the water change. The nutrients and bacteria will be in lower concentrations and you won't be able to remove as much as before.

Well then I'm really blowing it because while I vacuum my main tank, I have the TO hooked up to my new salt water. Once the water level in the sump drops, it pumps in a little more allowing me to get on siphoning. This allows me to vacuum, via siphon, as long as the new salt water holds out or I've finished the area I'm working on.

 

Personally, I feel the small amount of "new" salt water removed via this process is inconsequential in the scheme of things, plus salt is cheap versus the benefits of exchanging it.

 

You can always stir up the detritus around the siphon to maximize removal

I also find that by siphoning off from the sump, actually vacuuming, that there's zero need to stir things up since it's all settled right there to systematically vacuum away. Now, I have made tools to facilitate my personal process. That's more than half the fun of the hobby for me.

 

Since I'm pushing at least 7000gph around inside my 220, there's not a lot of detritus settlement in there.

I designed my sump to baffle the water (slow it down) at certain spots to encourage settlement of detritus so I can simply vacuum it away weekly/bi weekly.

 

What seems to work well for me can be modified a million different ways and still have as good of results.

There's no perfect way, just a better way for each senerio each one of us encounters.

[SeanCallan]

Well then I'm really blowing it because while I vacuum my main tank, I have the TO hooked up to my new salt water. Once the water level in the sump drops, it pumps in a little more allowing me to get on siphoning. This allows me to vacuum, via siphon, as long as the new salt water holds out or I've finished the area I'm working on.

 

To each his own

[www.fishnreef.com]

I designed my sump to baffle the water (slow it down) at certain spots to encourage settlement of detritus so I can simply vacuum it away weekly/bi weekly.

 

Chip,

This sounds like a great idea...can you elaborate a bit more?

Thanks,

Nadir

[flowerseller]

To each his own

exactly!

 

Chip,

This sounds like a great idea...can you elaborate a bit more?

Thanks,

Nadir

 

In a nut shell,

The closer together a baffle is to another one, the faster the water will travel through that area. Little to no settlement because the water, and detritus, is traveling too fast.

So, by having some over/under areas, but having a larger open area, baffles further apart, allows detritus to settle since it's heavier and the water is traveling slower. This allows the water to be slower and much detritus will collect in the area closest to the next up (over) baffle.

This allows it to concentrate in that area for easy siphoning with less water removal.

[jason the filter freak]

well to clarify this is an on going proscess there is about 1/4" of beige/grey detritus built up on the bottom of her sump. I've thought about the MJ idea just seems like it would be hard to move around. Too bad the eheim vacuums cost so much. I'll try and get her an MJ vacuum hooked up soon.

[Gatortailale]

I think the sump is a perfect place to have detritus settle. Rather see it settle there than in the main tank.

Siphoning off during a water change is the key. I do not use a power head simply add water till the sump is mostly full and siphon it off. By filling the sump, it adds more pressure on the siphon allowing you to siphon longer which allows more detritus to be pulled out.

+1

 

I use a python hose to siphon out the ditrus from my sump when I do water change. During water change, I pump 20+ g's out with mag pump and then use python for last 5-10 g's to get detritus from sump.

[SeanCallan]

well to clarify this is an on going proscess there is about 1/4" of beige/grey detritus built up on the bottom of her sump. I've thought about the MJ idea just seems like it would be hard to move around. Too bad the eheim vacuums cost so much. I'll try and get her an MJ vacuum hooked up soon.

 

A vaccum would be nice, but why spend the money? I'm always cautious making dramatic changes to salt water tanks. I'm not sure whether there would be any changes in water chemistry if you were to remove that amount of detritus suddenly in one go.

 

The safest and cheapest solution would be to siphon out the stuff over the course of a couple of daily water changes. That way you're removing the detritus and other particulate matter in the water column and replenishing trace elements all without buying any new equipment.

[flowerseller]

well to clarify this is an on going proscess there is about 1/4" of beige/grey detritus built up on the bottom of her sump. I've thought about the MJ idea just seems like it would be hard to move around. Too bad the eheim vacuums cost so much. I'll try and get her an MJ vacuum hooked up soon.

Jason,

If you want to pump it out as opposed to siphoning, hook up some vinyl tubing to the bottom of the MJ and vacuum away.

 

I'd never be concerned about removing too much detritus at one time.

Get it out of there before it breaks down.

[lhcorals]

I use a Mr.cleaner Battery operated Siphon. It catches everything in Very fine mesh bag. You can get them from That Fish Place. They cost $14.39. T Mr. Cleaner Battery Operated Siphon

Tom Aquarium

 

Starting at: $14.39

 

Hard-to-clean small tanks and other aquariums benefit from the light flow rate in this battery operated siphon. Waste is collected in the attached mesh bag while water and beneficial bacteria is circulated back into your aquarium so you don't need to change more water than you'd like.

 

 

 

 

 

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Item Number Availability QTY Item Price

WB:215690 In Stock Mr. Cleaner Siphon - Battery Operated $14.39

 

hey work great.

[SeanCallan]

I'd never be concerned about removing too much detritus at one time.

Get it out of there before it breaks down.

 

Rapid decreases in nutrients can cause an assortment of issues with corals. Thats why Zeovit and those other systems start out slow, if you pull all the nutrients out too quickly you can have color and tissue loss on corals.

 

I could be mistaken but why not be safe and do things gradually to avoid any problems?

[lanman]

I use a Mr.cleaner Battery operated Siphon. It catches everything in Very fine mesh bag. You can get them from That Fish Place. They cost $14.39. T Mr. Cleaner Battery Operated Siphon

Tom Aquarium

 

Starting at: $14.39

 

Hard-to-clean small tanks and other aquariums benefit from the light flow rate in this battery operated siphon. Waste is collected in the attached mesh bag while water and beneficial bacteria is circulated back into your aquarium so you don't need to change more water than you'd like.

 

My problem with this - the detritus I have in the bottom of my sump is so fine that it's already managed to go through a filter sock. It would have to be a 'finer' filter. Guess it's time for me to get back to work on my 'el cheapo' sump vacuum idea.

 

bob

[magnetic1]

If one were to shut off return flow back to the main tank and stir up all the detritus and let your skimmer go nuts... how long would that need to run for? Or would be be too long to even consider?

[lhcorals]

My problem with this - the detritus I have in the bottom of my sump is so fine that it's already managed to go through a filter sock. It would have to be a 'finer' filter. Guess it's time for me to get back to work on my 'el cheapo' sump vacuum idea.

 

bob

 

Bob it is a very very fine mesh bag. Catches everything. My detritus is fine and have no problem catching it.