Filter floss help

My old reef tank has ALOT of detritus in it. Not much flow, so there are alot of piles of fine just. The water is great, clear, my two fish and inverts happy as well as my softies, but I want to up the flow to where is should be and manage the detritus. I only run a octopus bh-100f protien skimmer and have a po4 reactor on the way (though the damn test kit i bought today says i ont have any po4)

What should I do for some mechanical filtration? my plan is to suck up what I can with a baster but after that do I try to put a handful in the 3rd chamber of the skimmer or do I get hardcore ghetto and drop in a pop bottle with a maxi pump in the middle for a couple hours after stirring everything up?

 

First... what PO4 test do you have. PO4 needs to be below .02 and most kits do not test on low range. Your kit may say zero but doubt it is.

Second.... your skimmer will skim out the ditrius, but you need flow to keep it in the water column. You need more flow.

 

I just let it collect and siphon out as needed.

 

And in the mean time it is breaking down and accumulating nitrate concentrations.

 

lol. I'm not recommending letting it turn into a great mountain of detritus. If it sits too long cyano will coat it. It is always present to some degree in nearly every system (hiding under rocks, in the sump, etc). I don't worry too much about it until it becomes unsightly. I don't run any filtration in my system and the chemicals are fine. They'll be better when I get rid of hte puffer tho.. My nitrates are always around 20ppm (which is higher than I ever like to see).

 

yeah, i picked up a nutrafin 0.0-5.0 mg/l it was all i could get locally. I already ordered up a po4 reactor because i know i have phosphate issues i just figured something would pop on it. my green zoos are already starting to brown a bit

 

i have alot of junk in there lol and my cuc is dow to a brittle, 4-6 nasaurius and ONE certh snail. hes kinda like Bruce Willis from Die Hard 3 (old but tough enough to get it done) i'm gonna get an order into john this week but I want to get as many of the particulates out of there as I can

 

why not just use a filter sock in the sump and stir up the detris into the water column and let the sock do the work? or add another power head to the tank to get some water flow. like powerman said you just need more water movement to keep the fines in the water column.

 

Ya, you need a high resolution test. I have a Merck kit that reads down to .004, but it was pricey at $80. Tunze makes a good one. All the others are pretty useless for our needs and only show a gross problem.

 

no sump, but roger on the flow increase