Detritus Removal From BB Tank?

[Beverly]

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.

[Richer]

I'm putting together my own BB tank right now, however its going to have a sump. I'm going to blast the display tank with lots of flow, and hope that it will keep the crap in the tank suspended in the water column long enough so that it'll go into the sump where I *hope* the baffles will be effective enough in getting the crap to settle out of the water. If I can't get enough flow going through the tank, I'll probably attach a spray bar on a spare powerhead and position that low in the tank.

-Richer

[Quinn]

Why bother removing the crud at all? My understanding is that the premise of all the developments in reefing in the past decade has been to eliminate the need for direct intervention in the tank by the aquarist, other than cleaning glass, adding top-off water and feeding.

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by teevee

Why bother removing the crud at all?

This almost seems like a stupid question, Quinn, and I know you are not in the least bit stupid so I will humour you with an answer.......

None of my tanks have sumps, fuges or skimmers, only mechanical filtration. I do have macroalgae in each tank that utilizes some of the nutrients. Crud is the source of nutrients, which, if not removed by some means, leads to all kinds of nitrate and phosphate related problems. By removing the crud, you reduce the number of problems you have to contend with over the longer term. I hope this simple explanation makes sense to you.

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by Richer

I'm going to blast the display tank with lots of flow, and hope that it will keep the crap in the tank suspended in the water column long enough so that it'll go into the sump where I *hope* the baffles will be effective enough in getting the crap to settle out of the water.

Richer,

Sounds like a good plan. Once your tank is up and running for awhile, turkey baste your rock and let us know what has accumulated on it.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Beverly

None of my tanks have sumps, fuges or skimmers, only mechanical filtration. I do have macroalgae in each tank that utilizes some of the nutrients. Crud is the source of nutrients, which, if not removed by some means, leads to all kinds of nitrate and phosphate related problems. By removing the crud, you reduce the number of problems you have to contend with over the longer term. I hope this simple explanation makes sense to you.

I do have a skimmer and sump, and I still try to remove as much crud as I can, for exactly the reasons mentioned. Crud = pollution and should be removed.

[Stretch]

My understanding of a BB system is that the debris shouldn't not settle on the bottom of the tank. So it will make it's way to the sump where the skimmer will then remove the debris.

[Beverly]

Jesse,

Unless you've got a washing machine set up with your powerheads, you're going to have some settling, on the bottom, on the rock and even on the corals, in my limited experience, anyway.

[Stretch]

Well The way my current is blows sand all over the place so for debris in the main tank wouldn't be much of a problem, probably a few spot where it would collect. but without a sump/skimmer i think it would have to settle some where the main tank.

[Doug]

Because of where our tanks our, {a friends & my new one}, behind a wall, we are trying to run our large becketts direct from the tank to see if they skim better or, as per this subject, collect more of the detritus.

Our sumps are real low flow and only serve for co2 reactors, kalk and level control. I wonder if the Mak 4 driven beckett, would take up more floating detritus than a pair of overflows feeding high flow to a sump?