Ditch the live rock and control the detritus?

[AcroSteve]

I have probably 50 lbs or so of live rock and rubble in my sump. Probably 10lbs of this is rubble. This does supply some habitat for many different creatures plus it adds some biological support to the filtration.

I have always put up with the majority of the detritus that collects on the bottom of the sump, only occasionally cleaning most of it out. And I always hate trowing out all the starfish, pods and worms when I vacuume it out. That is the primary reason it has been in there as long as it has.

But, in an effort to get some nuisance algae/cyano under control, I am pretty sure I am going to remove all of the rubble and just leave the larger pieces. This will make it much easier to keep the detritus in check. But I will be loosing lots of habitat for the little creatures.

Am I really loosing that much good stuff to worry about?

[dragon_slayer]

Steve

IMO allot of the detritus you're seeing on the bottom of your sump comes from the life living in the rock/rubble. the 'bug life' eats/digs/cuts/chips away at the inside of your rock making its home and in return you get allot of sandy sediment. run a filter sock on your overflow and that should keep 99% of the unwanteds from the tank making it to the sump to accumulate.

as for the nuisance algae, try to eliminate it at the source (over feeding/saturated LR in the display/etc...)

kc

[virginiadiver69]

What do you mean by "saturated rock"?

[dragon_slayer]

it's absorbed all the PO4 it can hold and it's leaching it back to the water.

kc

[virginiadiver69]

I have never heard of this. Does this mean LR has a life span? I have never heard that rock needs to be replaced for new rock. I hope that is not what you mean.

[dragon_slayer]

saturated rock needs to be 'cooked', cooking (no not in the oven) will both draw out the PO4 saturation as well as force the bio-life in the rock to work overtime to naturally brake it as well as NO3 down.

after it's cleared up, it's up to you if it stays that way or not, if you constantly over feed your system or add excessive nutrients or phosphates in other ways (tap water/etc..) your rock will naturally soak it up again and become saturated again.

in extreme cases it's simpler to just buy new rock. I've got several hundred lbs of rock that i got for next to nothing because it was saturated and i cooked all of it and add it to my systems a few pieces at the time to get an abundance of bio-life back on it and then sell/trade it off.

kc

[AcroSteve]

I am not a big fan of filter socks, mostly because my layout makes them rather inconvenient. I do have a couple though.

I sort of wish I had the room to add a large settling tank to my system.

[AcroSteve]

It's hard to tell if you are overfeeding without starving the fish, but PO4 is a definite probability too. I do run Phosban, but not enough as I need to. $$$ :(

I get great growth from nearly all of my sticks, but the colors are not as good as I think I can get, and the live rock looks kind of grungy.

OTOH, my cleanup crew stinks. I definitely need more snails.

[dragon_slayer]

you could always wet up the skimming a bit and kick up some extra flow in the tank to try and get some of that grunge moving in the water column so it can be skimmed out, blast it with a 1/2" hose attached to a MJ1200 if necessary.

on the PO4 removers, I've found that they can quickly deplete your Alk if used in excess, i run a cup of Phosban in the 150 reactor at a small broken stream effluent rate and find that works better for ME then a near full reactor with enough flow to keep it fluidized, YMMV.

on the clean up crew, it's hard to beat the good Dr's F&S prices at E-Tropicals on the BYO package, order $60 get free shipping.

kc