Questions!!!

[STREBORYNOT]

I'm really green at this stuff...... will snails do ok with live rock? And also what is "detritus" :?:

[Charles Poole]

Snails like Turbo, Astrea, Trochus and a few others are great herbivores, and will pose no harm to anything in your tank. With the exception of algae of course.....

Detritus is the crud that settles to the bottom of your tank. If you have ever gravel vacuumed a Freshwater tank, then you have seen the light brown crud that is vacuumed up. That is detritus. Basically fish and animal solid waste.

[paulsreef]

Another little trick to help with detritus... I call it spring cleaning. I do it about once a month (I don't believe that frequency is written in stone... you can do it as often as you see fit). I basically blow all the detritus out of cracks and corners with a small powerhead and/or a turkey baster. This gets it moving and out into the water column where two things will happen to it. First, since its suspended in the water column, it has a better chance of being removed by mechanical filtration (either your skimmer or a pad of some sort). Second, all your filter feeding organisms and corals will love you for it. Look at it this way. Reefs are notoriously nutrient poor environments (or at least they seem to be) because things either settle out or are removed by opportunistic feeders that strain the water clean. Instead of adding yet more food for your organisms, recirculate some of the nutrient matter that's already there (detritus= fish poop, half dissolved food, etc.). It will keep your tank cleaner and your animals will love it. Oddly enough, whenever I do this (and after the initial cloud goes away) the tank always looks better and I see exceptional polyp extension and feeding behavior.

Just my $0.02

Paul

Sounds Good. I Am Now Going To Try That.

[Zack]

Let us know how it goes :)

But Isnt That Going To Stress Out The Fish?

[paulsreef]

Not at all. Imagine life on a real reef where water is constantly moving back and forth due to wave motion. You're fish actually get a lot of good exercise because of the current. A few minutes of altered current, stirring things up isn't going to send them into thearapy or anything. I've been doing this for years and have never had a problem. I'm not saying violently thrash about the power head or baster in your tank :) ... just locate the areas where detritus builds up and blow out the detritus so it gets suspended back into the water column. If you've setup the flow right in your tank with the proper amount of power heads etc, then you shouldn't have that many areas where detritus settles. A wave maker can help with this as well. A good clean up crew (including cukes and the like can help process this) but ultimately they don't remove it from the tank (which is the goal) they just recycle the nutrients.

Alright Maybe I Will Do This On Saterday

[EXVISOR]

Hi everyone, have a question, been doing salt water for about a year now, all fish tank, 55 gal, I just upgraded to a 125 has my fish had trippled there size
I used the water from the 55 plus the sand, i had to add another four bags or live sand for bottom of tank ,lots of live rock, put old filters on new tank plus added 1 new one, my question is It's easy for me to do a water change every 2 weeks instead of waiting a month and changing it all at once, i do half a change every two weeks
should i skip the water change this month since i had to add 70 gal of new water or should i continue as i would

[gman0526]

How much water are u changing? You can do 10% water changes weekly or 20% changes every 2 wks.

I don't see why not make a water change now but is really up to u.

[EXVISOR]

I WAS DOING A 20% EVERY 2 WEEKS WITH THE 55 GAL BUT I'M THINKING NOW WITH THE 125 DOING HALF, IN OTHER WORDS A 20% WATER CHANGE ON A 125 TANK WOULD BE 25 GAL SO I'M THINKING OF CHANGING 12 OR 13 GAL EVERY 2 WEEKS WHICH WILL COME OUT AS DOING A 20% MONTHLY, JUST EASY FOR ME TO DO IT THAT WAY THEN TO DEAL WITH 25 GAL ALL AT ONCE, IS 20% A MONTH WATER CHANGE GOOD????

[EXVISOR]

Has anyone upgrades to a biger tank, I just changed from a 55 to a 125 ,I transford the old sand-water adn filters along with adding some more live sand and another filter, is my tank going to start over with the cycle like a new tank???????

[Telco Guy]

You may see a mini cycle since you stired up a lot of detritus and totally disturbed the sand bed. Just keep an eye on it and do water changes if the levels start to rise too much.

[EXVISOR]

Thanks for the info ,have you ever herd of a chemical called cycle, its in a bottle and is full of bio, some people don't believe it works but when i set up my first tank 88 months ago between the live sand and the cycle addative my tank cycled in two weeks ,I added some of that in as it also staes it mellows the fish out and kills the nitites from them stressing

[Telco Guy]

It's probably a bio activator. These can help to reduce the spikes in the cycle process, but some might feel that this may not produce a good strong population of anaerobic bacteria.

btw, is that 8 months or 88 months?

[EXVISOR]

I used it one time when my readings spiked due to my puffer eating my feather duster ,it made everything normal the next day ,I don't use it to often, I just find its good when something bad happens or in this case when I moved my fish and contents to another tank ,I do notice that my water looks a little bit cloudy, not much, just very slight