Brown Sump Waste
 

I seem to get a lot of soft brown material collecting in the bottom of the waste which I have to vacuum up every week in order to keep the particulate matter from floating around the tank . Is this normal or am I missing something .. all water parameters are well within normal limits , fish and coral very healthy and thriving

just normal detrius (fish waste/rotten uneaten food etc)
A skimmer will help to remove some of this, if you don't already have one, other than that, regular vaccumming as you've been doing is the best way.

Death. Taxes. Brown Sump Waste.

I'm going to go with "Things in life that are certain" :lol: good one!

that's one of the reasons to have a sump (to collect the waste from the tank)

Brown sump waste... I have some of that. I hardly ever remove it, though. I bet it absolutely seethes under a microscope!

Thanks I guess that answers my question > I do have a skimmer but thought that the skimmer would remove this waste and felt that perhaps it was not working to capacity if this sludge appears in the sump

I have two sumps. All this stuff gets drained out of the one sump during a water change. But the main sump has accumulated this stuff for over a year now and I've not pulled it out. It is probably 1cm deep in some spots.

I had about 3 years buildup of it I ended up cleaning with a shop vac back in March. It was... gruesome. I resolved to never let it get that bad again. I've promptly not done it again since. I probably should do something about that ... but man ... shop vaccing the sump means draining it completely and it's a PITA. But .. ugh, 3 years of it was gruesome. Did I mention it was gruesome? It was gruesome.