Flow problems?

I Have a 30 gallon running for 3 months. all the parameters are the lowest. I have 4 fish, 2 shrimp and a clean up crew. i use 2 hydro power heads 1. i have an aquaclear 50 and a remora skimmer.

My hippo tang started to get large white dots and and has gotten almost translucient. my naso tang suddenly died. Parameters are still good. last 2 fish look fine.

my question is when i vacume my tank or stir up the water, there is a ton of debree that kicks up, then mostly settles back on the ground. itook apart my reef (35lbs of rock) and tons of debre was behind it. Im sure in the begining i overfed, but i am much better now.

what am i doing wrong? do i not have enough flow, should i get a bigger aquaclear or a different filter type? it seems like the debre just settles to the bottom and never gets sucked out... there is a ton of junk when i stir up the tank and slime, but how do i setup my tank that it gets sucked out??
thanks

 

I am inclined to believe that disturbing the sand bed did something. That is the only thing I can think of. Sandbeds are best left undisturbed. There are things in the depths that are best left there. You can create a mini-cycle by vacuuming. Just be cautious about your feeding habits and look into a clean up crew to help with keeping the sandbed clean. There are a variety of snails out there that will do the job and do it well.

Go to Reefcleaners.org and click on the custom clean up crew tab. Mr. John Malony will look over your situation and hook you up with what you need. Getting snails to do the job of the vacuum is preferable. Good luck dude.

 

Thanks for the help. so you never vacume the sandbed? i get what looks to be grey ash on top of my sandbed. what is it?

 

i would never vacuum a bed that not vacuumed regularily.

thats detritus. i would increase your flow in the tank, a few scavengers may eat some of it but i think increasing the flow is the best way