detritus

Hey guys,
I have a thin layer of brown detritus over the bottom of my tank and on my base rock. how do i eliminate this, i see the sand in most tanks is nice and white, however i cannot get mine to look the same even with gravel cleaning via a vacuum.

 

How old is your tank?
What are the stats on it? (Alk, pH, Nitrates, Nitrites, etc)
What kind of water are you using?
Any pictures?

 

welcome to 3 reef Donnie 999
My 1st instinct is that you may have less flow in you tank, then many of the peoples whose tanks you have seen with nice clean sand?

flow keeps the waste in suspension until it is sent out the overflow to the sump or sump prefilter
or ends up in the suction pipe of a cannister filter etc

what size tank do you have, what equipment do you have
what flow have you got - returns plus power heads etc

Steve

 

;D Thanks Steve, Forgot to ask that!

The more info you can give us, the better we will be able to help you out.

 

If this is a brand new tank, still cycling, it could be diatoms. How old is the tank? And welcome to 3reef!

 

nailed - probably
Steve

 

diatoms was definitely the first thing that came to mind. but thats only if its cycling

 

diatoms are caused by excessive silicates which can be introduced in several ways. I wipe diatoms off my glass daily. But it does not build up on my rocks or sand bed. Silicates will release until their are no more. In my case.....10 months later, still silicates present. Diatoms feed off of silicates. If you add sand to your tank, they could contain silicates, if you use tap....or even crappy RO, it will most likely contain silicates. If you add new powerheads or overflows to an established system,,,,guess what, the plastic will contain silicates and it has to slowly leach out.

If there are no silicates, there should be no diatoms but most tank still have diatoms after years. There are some fish that eat mostly diatoms including a lawnmower blenny. Mines always munching on the glass.