debris or detritus?

Hello,

The rock I used for my new 40B build was old rock that had went through a tank meltdown (literally). I was upset over losing all my livestock so I had let the rocks sit in the water for a good week before draining it. I went through a lengthy procedure to clean the rock best I could:

1. Boiled rocks for 3 hours
2. Sun bleached rocks for 1 month
3. Burned rocks with a blowtorch
4. Scrubbed rocks with wire brush
4. Rinsed rocks
5. Sun bleached rocks for another month

Then I drilled and built a rock structure. The tank is 4 months old and is bare bottom. I get a lot of debris, what looks like detritus on the bottom of my tank often. I scrape it, and suck it out and do a water change. Yes I am using distilled water this time. However in a few days the debris comes back! Nitrates and phosphates at 0. Small HA problem, however I just started growing chaeto a week ago. Stock: NO FISH, or CUC, healthy pod population, 4 colonies of zoas, 5 head candy cane and 4 head frogspawn. Everything is doing well so there is no concern there. Where is this debris coming from? Is it being leached out by the rock? How long will this continue? Its getting annoying!

Thanks

 

Probably detritus- corals excrete solid waste too, especially polyps and LPS.

 

What really blows me away is that all of this would have gone into my sand bed. It's an uncomforting amount that piles up on a weekly basis. I've made a vaccum out of a 250gph powerhead and a penquin filter full of carbon with a filter sock over it. It allows me to suck the stuff up and filter the water back into the tank w/out doing huge water changes.

 

Anyone else have any insight on this? I don't feed my aquarium anything and somehow there is even more debris on the bottom today. I'm getting really impatient. I'm going to a frag fest on sat and I want to get some stuff but now I'm worried that these rocks are holding in phosphates or nitrates that could release. Is that possible?

 

When my tank was BB the same thing happened. I do have two fish however but the detritus collects pretty quickly.

If you have phosphates leeching out you will eventually see a TON of algae growth.

Seems like this collection of detritus is common with BB tanks.

I would not worry too much about the rock.

 

+1

You may not add any type of prepared food, but the corals you have most definitely feed on pods.

 

do you have a sump?

one of the benefits of the BB tank, is that you can increase flow around the base of the tank without the concerns you would have with a sand bed

if you have a sump, increase flow in that area, to keep the particles in suspension, and then out through overflow and into the sump or can be collected in a filter sock

Steve

 

No sump, I use an aqueon 55 HOB filter that I modded to grow chaeto with a 10 w 6500K led over it. It provides nice surface movement as well as strong suction to clear out the suspended particles. I put pillow batting in the return area as a filter and change every few days. I have an Mag drive 7 driving my skimmer and a Hydor Koralia Evolution 750 that blows past my heater onto the substrate. Right now I like the flow that i'm getting and it keeps all the debris in one place. Do you think the paly's and zoas are eating the pods? some of the paly's are like 1/2" in diameter and the pods are tiny. If thats so then I shouldn't have to feed right? What are the pods eating?

 

Has anyone use a under gravel filter on a BB reef?

 

I doubt it, I think the people that went BB did it for the looks. The undergravel filter would take away from that.