Need help with detritus on rock

So my tank is 4 month old now. My clean up crew is excellent. Water params are stable and there's no spikes of any kind.

It's so good in fact, I do not believe I have any algea in the tank.

On top of that, between various snails, diamond goby and sand sifting starfish my sand is crystla clear. White, white white.

What I do have a problem with is a buildup, of what I believe to be detritus, on the rocks. There' so much of it, my LR went from green/purple to this weird white/gray color.

I keep stirring it up with a turkey baster and removing it from tank during water changes, but it just keeps coming back.

I am worried that it's preventing good critters and algeas from growing on my LR, as well as making the tank look dull.

Any ideas what kind of organism can I add that would eat that stuff up?

The CUC in my 55g standard tank with no sump is:
20+ dwarf cerith
10+ nassarius vibex
5+ florida cerith
5+ nerite snails
6+ hermit crabs
1 emerald crab
1 diamond goby
1 star sifting starfish

Thanks.

 

detritus buildup is all organic waste( fish food, poop, dead stuff, etc.) usually a cleanup crew will help rid your tank of this but if it doesnt then you might not have enough flow in the tank. point 2-3 pumps right at your several problem areas and that should do the trick.

 

I agree, your issue isn't the CUC. You need more flow. Go crank up those MP10s to max on NTM. If that doesn't work, then take a picture, cause it ain't detritus.

Also, post up a FTS ayways, so we can see where the pumps and rocks are placed.

 

Very solid advice. I agree with every word.
Flow makes a whole lot of difference.

Sent from my Inspire 4G using Tapatalk

 

Are there any guides around talking about how to setup powerheads/wavemakers properly to help eliminate dead spots and nutrient gathering places? I'm starting to see a buildup on my rocks so I think I need more flow or better placement.

I have 2 Koralia 4s in a 90 gallon and a Mag 18 return pump but I'm thinking that's not enough.

Thanks.

 

Are you sure we're not dealing with diatoms here? Your tank is young so it could be just going through it's natural bloom. Give it a little while and it should all disappear, if it is indeed diatoms. A picture would help a lot in this case.

 

you can always have more flow, but I have the same pumps as you, two K4's and a Mag 18 return on my 120 and it does the job...

You just want to work with the angles of the power heads to get flow around/ through aquascape and across tank... sometimes bouncing the flow off the glass helps...

 

Here are the pics:

First few show all this grey/white dust/particles all over my rock. It's not sand as far as I can tell. It looks more soft, dusty. Not as sharp as sand crystals.

Then you can see my FTS with pump setup. I actualy have quite a bit of flow.

There are:
1) 2x MP10s in NTM (running at about 75%, so roughly 1800 gph combined)
2) 1x koralia evolution 550gph and 1x koralia nano 240gph acting as surface agitators (water surface being rough also adds to shimmer a lot) so thats another 790gph
3) Skimmer with maxijet 1200 (another 300gph)
4) Hang-on filter, another 300gph

We talknig a total of 3190gph in a 55g tank, so 58:1 turnover.

If you think that's too much flow, I used to have just the MP10s and problem was just the same.

If i bring any of my pumps lower or point them down, they tend to kick up too much sand and beat the coral.

In the 4th shot you can see my LR. Coraline is still thriving, but the rest of the rock went from greenish to mostly grey/white.

I do not think it's diatoms, since I already went through those several month ago.

Thanks fellas.

 

It looks like some sort of bacterial "fuzz" IMO possibly being caused by an imbalance of bacterial strains in the water column. How long does it take to return after manual removal?Does it seem to only be in the areas with lesser amounts of flow? You carbon Dosing at all? Additives like MB7?

 

It does seem to be mostly in the lower part of the tank in lower flow area. It's not so much that it returns after removal, it's just once i stir it up, water gets so saturated with it than even after 20% water change, once it settles it tends to cover up a lot of rock agian.

I did 3 20% water changes so far in the last 5 weeks, and it seems that i am barely making any progress. I just do not want to change water so often, afraid ill stress out the fish and upset the tank chemistry.

I first noticed this stuff when my tank was finishing cycling and I had my algea bloom 3 month ago. Turbo snaisl would mow down the algea and leave this crap in place. So basically I am thikning it's snail poop.

Re carbon and dosing, i got two sucks full of carbon + gfo and I am doing seachem 2 part and seachem trace.