[bongobrian]

I spoke to a guy from EcoSystem corporation on the phone last week and he gave me a tip that I had never heard of before. He told me to turn off all of my powerheads and filters in my tank, take a turkey baster and blast all of the detritus off of my rock, let it settle on the sand, and then siphon it out of the tank. Anyway, I tried it and it really seemed to work well. You would be surprised at all the detritus that settles on your live rock. My sand was almost black with all the gunk that came out of the rock. I siphoned it out as I did my regular water change. Just thought I would share this tip. I think it is quite logical and it makes doing water changes even more meaningful. I think doing this on a regular basis could also help eliminate sources of harmful nutrients in the water. Does anyone else practice this technique?

[eses]

I do it every water change. I blast underneath the rocks a bit too, and in the holes. But I use a powerhead instead of the turkey baster.

I go back and forth between stirring the sump and the display tank. I will do the rockwork in the tank one week and then the next week stir up and siphon out of the sump. It works better than a mechanical filter in my opinion.

That, and my Xenia seems to appreciate it a bit. Every time I do it, it opens up even more like it is trying extra-hard to filter feed.

Another tip I picked up is if you do run a mechanical filter, or a micron filter, leave it running while you stir everything up. The filter will get alot of the stuff you won't, you just need to make sure to clean it out after your done changing water.

[bongobrian]

What type of mechanical filter would you recommend for doing this? That's one thing that I noticed... I wasn't able to get ALL of the detritus because a lot of it would settle back on the rock. If I was able to stir everything up and then have something to remove the detritus right from the water, that would be better than letting it settle in places where it cannot be siphoned.

[newreefman1]

You cant get everything. Thats what a cleanup crew is for. The extra siphoning youre doing/ basting is helping alot. I doubt youll need to do any extra. Let your cleanup crew do the rest. I have a ton of detritus that settles...I stir it up and siphon what I can get out when I do changes as well...I leave the stuff I cant get to alone Obviously cause I cant get to it. lol. No adverse affects...

[bongobrian]

Do you guys have fine sand? doesn't that create a huge "sand storm" in your tank by doing this? I have crushed coral in my tank so it's much easier for me to siphon. I'm probably going to be moving soon and when I do, I'm going to switch to fine aragonite sand. The guy at EcoSystem told me to keep my crushed coral bed, but thin it down to about 3/4 of an inch. He also said that going with no substrate would also help because then the detritus would not be getting stored up anywhere. I guess this makes sense, but I would feel much more comfortable with a DSB. Seems like everyone who I talk to that has one, has had good success with them. I also like the looks of it. I guess the idea is that if you keep enough infauna in the sand bed, they will take care of the detritus for you. I guess you guys still do the stir and siphon technique though.

Does anyone out there have a DSB as well as a large Ecosystem/refugium set up? I've heard that it defeats the purpose to have both.

Newreefman1- what kinds of animals do you recommend for the clean up crew.. both infaunal and epiphaunal. Thanks.

[Iron Crab]

I have an extra line hooked up to my main pump so everytime I clean my rock I just turn a few valves. Water is diverted into a hose that I use to hit my rock. I also have a fine sand bed- you watch so you don't blast all your sand around. When I see a little movement on the surface of the sand I back off a little. When I'm done all I have to do is make sure all the water is out of the hose.
I do put a sponge in my sump to catch anything that goes through the system but when the water is clear I remove the sponge.