You'd think that it would be simple to just siphon out detritus from a bare bottom tank
Last week I did a water change with a hose and tried to siphon out as much detritus as I could. Took a long freaking time just to prime the siphon, then when I did, water spouted all over the floor knocking out a powerbar. Luckily DH had installed GFIs the day before
I did manage to do the water change, but the results were disappointing.
Anyway, after a few days of watching the water flow and low flow areas in the 42g hex with the bare bottom, I got thinking.... dangerous, I know
Before removing the sandbed, I used to turkey baste the rock which would allow the mechanical filter to catch some of the detritus that ALWAYS settles on the rock. So I did that today. Tank got somewhat cloudy, as usual. Some of the detritus was sucked into the mechanical filter, some fell back onto the rock and some fell to the bottom of the tank.
The stuff that fell onto the rock was basted again and again. The stuff that fell onto the bottom, I basted toward the low flow area where it accumulated very well. I used the turkey baster to suck up the detritus from the low flow area. Here is what I sucked out of the tank with the baster that would normally have stayed on the sandbed. The container is about 4 1/2" in diameter:
I got a lot of detritus and some leftover sand that fell from some of the rock, however, it was a pretty time consuming endeavor. Don't know how I'm going to remove detritus in the new tanks, but will try to create low flow areas for detritus accumulation and removal.
How do other BB tank keepers remove crud from the bottom? Are you satisfied with the amount you remove? I am, but it sure took a long time to do so.