Detritus Removal From BB Tank?

[Beverly]

You'd think that it would be simple to just siphon out detritus from a bare bottom tank :confused: 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 :eek: 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 :mrgreen: 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:


http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/52642gal-bb-8-jun-04-4.jpg?1136

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]

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]

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]

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?

[Beverly]

Doug and Jesse,

Used to have a skimmer on my first tank a few years back. Used to baste the rock and sandbed then, too. Don't remember how much of the detritus that went into the water column wound up in the skimmer, but a lot of it was collected by the mechanical filter we also had in the tank.

You guys might like to turkey baste your tank to see how much detritus has collected on your rock. I think you will be surprised at how much crud is actually there, even if you have lots of circulation. Don't worry if your tank gets pretty cloudy, especially if you haven't ever basted your tank. The detritus won't hurt your corals or fish, though the corals may close up some during basting.

Being skimmerless, I'd like to know how your skimmer handles a large amount of detritus in the water column both during and after basting.

[Orion80]

my buddy who runs both a fug and a sump for his bb tank, just made sure to put one of his return lines, he has two, very near the bottom of the tank, that way all the crud instead of settling on the bottom, stays in the water coloum and actually gets picked up by the mechanical filtration, which seems to me one of the best ideas for bb tanks. After about 6 months pretty much the whole bottom of the tank is covered in corraline algae that u actually get to c the pretty purple coralline b/c all the crud is not sitting on top of it.

Adie

[Chin_Lee]

if u got a small powehead, you can use that instead of a turkey baster. if you have that little handle to hook over the edge of the tank, its handy to hold on to get into some tricky areas.

[Beverly]

chin lee,

I was actually wondering about how to get a small powerhead into my larger tanks when I do the big switcheroo in a few weeks. Think I will elastic band it to a foot long rod of some sort to get behind the rock and in the nooks and crannies. The only problem with a PH is that water flow is at one constant speed. With a baster, you can decide how much force to use and when you want to use that force. Hmm..... Might test that out a little later :smile:

[Chin_Lee]

Beverly
attach a two foot vinyl flexible tube on the end of the powerhead and get the tubes behind the rock work. leave the PH attached to the side of the tank. kinda like a garden hose watering your "plants" or "washing" off your sidewalk of detritus :lol:

[Doug]

Yes, I know your skimmerless Bev. I was wondering about it regarding bare bottomed tanks. As you know, the guys running the large starboard tanks use lots of current to keep the detritus in suspension and I assume into the overflows. Then the large becketts, which are run wet, remove most of it. Of course these only house sps type corals and current loving fish.

Although we use large becketts, like you, we are still trying to keep our systems somewhat more simple. My friends 180 does have a shallow sandbed however. Mine is likely going to be starboard, but I,m having a hard time trying to part with my wrasses. :sad:

I experimented with my beckett running direct from my 225 before, but it also had some sand in it.

Also an advantage of a higher flow system, is my pair of Tunze streams keep the rock pretty clean. I also used a turkey baster for most cleaning that was required. I found the powerhead idea to hard on some corals and frags many times.

Orion, I would never run my returns much below the surface. I have no trust in check valves in a reef system. And although I use the small hole in my return lines, to break the siphon, I have seen what happens when they plug or a snail crawls on them. Now a closed loop cleaning the bottom is another thing.

Maybe thats what you need Bev. A small closed loop, with some type of bottom spray bar or something. Of course then, unless removable, spray bars can easily clog over time.

[Beverly]

Thanks for the suggestions, Doug, but am not going near anything where I have the possibility of a mini or any other kind of flood :eek: Had that happen a few times at our old house which was okay because the tank we had then was on lino. Now that we're in a second storey condo, a flood is simply not an option.

Only one of three tanks, the 37g, will have sps and lps corals in it. The 67g will house my zoo collection and maybe a few other softies so it will not need a high level of circulation. The 120g will is for my mushrooms and xenia so I can keep a dwarf angel of some type. This tank will also not need high water flow.

Once the tanks are set up, I can adjust water flow on the powerheads as well as adjust the direction of the water flow. As long as I get a low flow spot for the detritus to collect, I can direct my basting toward that spot. I will try out the small powerhead on a stick method (PH set on low flow) for moving detritus from behind and from under the rock.

Geez, I think I'm in for a lot of experimentation over the next while :razz: Will post information on my website once the tanks are up and running and we get a new website host.

[digital canuck]

Hello. My BB with the HDPE (starboard) covering the bottom has about three spots where the detrius gathers. One is the "main" one in that given the water flow, most accumulates in this one spot. It was luck that this large spot is easy to access to suction the detrius out.

I would suggest repositioning powerheads to see if a new spot for the collection of detrius can be made, ie: based on flow and "dead areas".

I bought a piece of stiff clear plastic from PetCetera and cut it down to about 18 inches and attached it to a 10ft length of hose. I then put the hose end in a pail and the piped end infront of a large powerhead in the tank. The siphon is then forced via the powerhead and I use the stiff pipe like a vacuum. Today I siphoned out the large spot, which was a weeks worth of detius and took less than a 5 gal pail of water to do it (18l pail from home depot). I had the new water in the tank and the job took no more than 5 minutes. This is on my new 180 gal.

I have an Aqua Medic Turboflotor 1000 Multi hanging on the back of the tank, and 7 powerheads and a Magnum 350 canister filter for charcoal and phosphate remover. The skimmer collects lots, and any accumulation is behind the rocks, not in the front of the tank. Based on what I'm removing I can't believe that with a sand/gravel bottom it was consistently accumulating in the tank. The bottom is quickly covering in coraline algea - pink spots on all the "starboard" bottom.

If you look at the image in this link http://www.activepartners.com/reginareef/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=167&password=&sort=1&cat=500&page=1 the detius gathers in the bottom right hand corner of the tank just behind the large tonga branch rock. You can't see it of course as it's behind the rock, so it's not unsightly, but is easy enough to get to for a once a week cleaning. Because it's so easy I'm thinking of removing it even more regularly. It can't hurt :biggrin:

Fish are: Pacific Blue Tang - 6 inches, Fox Face Rabbit Fish - 6-inches, Koran Angel -5 inches (changing to an adult), Coral Beauty, 3 inches, damsel - three stripe - 2 inches, Scissor Tail Goby 3 inches, and a scooter blenny and lawn mower blenny. No plans for any more. About 85 - 90 lbs of live rock.

Rick

[Fish]

Just wanted to add that the baffles in my sump do an awsome job of collecting detrius. I heard once that the key is not to space them too close together as this will cause the water to rush through them and carry any detrius/bubbles with it. Mine are spaced a little over 2 inches apart.
- Chad