It may be detritus to you but it's poop to me!

[nigle]

Oi!

Detritus, we all have it and we are all trying to get rid of it!

If all the coral books say that many if not all corals will use detritus as 'food' and if we all
have detritus in our tanks, and the corals can't get to it because its in the sand, then we
should get the detritus out of the sand, back into 'solution' in the water column and then
the corals can utilize it, right?

The 'books' are also telling us to 'get rid of the detritus' directly by physical means.

The 'books' also tell us NOT to 'mix' up the sand when we 'clean it of detritus' because it
will get back into the water column and 'foul the water and cause a nitrate spike'.

Those three concepts:

1. corals will use detritus

2. get rid of the detritus.

3. Don't get it in the water column.

seem to me a collective oxymoron.

So what I have been doing for the past couple of days is using a pipette and blowing
some water into the top of the sand at the corners of the tank and 'mixing up' some of the
detritus, getting it back into the water column and see what happens.

The result is that every time I did it, in every tank I have, the corals,
mushrooms etc. swell up and 'look' like they are feeding, the 'mouth openings' are open
and swelled.

Could this be part of the 'fad' in reefing in the 80's where they reversed the water flow
from the under 'sand' plates to force the water through the sand to get the detritus back
into the water column?

All I can figure is that a small 'bit' of detritus in the water at a time, if the corals can utilize
it before it settles back onto the sand [rocks, whatever] then 'shouldn't' this be a good
way to get 'rid' of the detritus?

Comments?

Cheers!
nigle
!~!

[NaH2O]

Ah - Nigle....2 of your 3 concepts are correct. Corals will use detritus, and you need to get rid of detritus. Absolutley! There is only so much the corals will utilize depending on type of coral, and how much food their zooxanthellae is providing, so you will still have quite a bit in the tank. On the second point, you do want to get rid of detritus. The stuff will rot in your tank if not cleaned up. You don't leave food sitting on your dishes for weeks and expect it to just disappear. You have to do some maintenance - same with your tank. Detritus is coming from a lot of areas. You would be surprised how much detritus is spewing from live rock, which is in a constant state of flux.

By stirring up the sand bed and freeing the detritus in the water column you are doing a couple of things. First, you are prolonging the life of the sand bed by keeping the junk from accumulating....breaking down....hitting the bottom of the tank....and then filling up. Secondly, by getting it into the water column, you are allowing it to be picked up by a filter sock, skimmer, corals, etc. If you take a look at my tank design, you will see how the bottom outputs are used in a similar way as a spray bar. It sweeps detritus into the water column to be utilized or skimmed away. If you let the junk sit in the sand bed then you are doing "Aquarium Composting", to use a term Mojoreef coined. Get it up in the water and get it out.

Here is a picture of my outputs. Obviously, this could not be used in a tank with a substrate:

[Craig Manoukian]

Ah, Nassaurius Snails, Hermit Crabs, Cleaner Shrimp, Conchs, a Turkey Baster, and a Skimmer.

When I clean my tank I get the same response as you Nigle from my corals. They munch as much as they can before it becomes skimmate.

[NaH2O]

Good point, Craig. Turkey basting and using a powerhead is important. The problem with snails and other critters that break down detritus is - it just gets smaller....it doesn't vanish. Those critters still have waste. Aquariums are not like the wild....there is a bottom to our reefs, so without getting the detritus free into the water column, it is just rotting and not getting picked up by skimmers or filter socks, or even used by the corals.

[Craig Manoukian]

Yes Nikki, a lite turkey basting of sand in addition to the tailing of my clown fish and wrasses moves the detritus into the water column. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but so far so good for a DSB.

[Curtswearing]

The corals will use a little of it and the rest will rot. This is where mechanical filtration (that is cleaned often), chemical filtration, and especially protein skimming comes into play. We want this stuff out of our systems.

The reason that many books tell people not to disturb the sandbed is because most people don't have a clue if they have a sulphide zone.....those puppies can nuke a tank if released. If I had a sandbed that was several years old, I would be careful to only touch the topmost layers. If you are puting in a new sandbed and regularly perform maintenance on them, then this is much less of a worry.

This is also the reason, it is not a good idea to cure LR in the tank with sand in it. You are just filling the sandbed quicker than necessary. I know there is a thought that the sand bed critters keep breaking waste down until it no longer exists but this just isn't true. Here's an example....

Lets pretend I landed a spaceship on a planet where there were 10 alien tribes who were dumb as dirt and completelely operated off of instinct. Tribe A's instinct is to take bricks of a specific size, break off 10% of it and put it in their pockets. The remaining 90% of the brick was handed off to the next tribe B who preferred smaller bricks and would also break off 10% of the the brick and put it in their pockets. Etc., etc., and so on. They were accustomed to having boundaries around them at all times and after much trial and error, it was determined that they were quite content in a drained olympic sized inground swimming pool on Earth.

However, they had an instinctive need to break bricks and there were no bricks in the drained pool. Obviously, it was decided to provide them with 2000 lbs of bricks. It takes a while for the bricks to move from one tribe to the next. However, after a short time, each of the 10 tribes was quite happy as all of the bricks were broken. (The 10th tribe decided the remainder wasn't worth dealing with and chose not to put it into their pocket).

How many lbs of bricks remain in the swimming pool? When weighing the last pile of bricks that the 10th tribe wouldn't take, it weighed 200 lbs. However, just because you can't see the bricks, all 2000 lbs of it is still there....it's just in a different form.

If an alien dies, another alien immediately steals the recently deceased aliens bricks.

In this example, tribe A, B, and C would be cucumbers, crabs, snails, etc. Tribes D and E would be pods and worms. The remaining tribes would all be different types of bacteria. The only brick that was visible was the last 10% and we call that mulm.

Dr. Shimek claims that the reason that sandbeds eventually fill up is because the suppliers are not providing us with enough different critters. However, this is ignoring one simple fact. If I brought in ten new tribes and told them to work on the remaining 200 lbs of brick, I would still have 2000 lbs of brick in my olympic pool.

[Craig Manoukian]

You are too funny Curt! Very amusing but a great point! We (Nikki, you and me) are all on the same page here although those of us with DSBs say, "I'm running with scissors, I'm running with scissors, ..."

[Curtswearing]

LOL!!!

There is nothing wrong with any method of filtration. However, it's important to understand how it works.

[Craig Manoukian]

[Witfull]

Originally posted by Craig Manoukian
You are too funny Curt! Very amusing but a great point! We (Nikki, you and me) are all on the same page here although those of us with DSBs say, "I'm running with scissors, I'm running with scissors, ..."

falling off logs?,,,