[bongobrian]

Ok I know this is pretty basic, but I still need a solution. I have a lot of brown "particles" sticking and hanging on my live rock. I'm assuming all this material is just detritus. Obviously I want to remove as much of that from the tank as possible. I'm looking for an effective way to remove what's already in the tank, and also to keep removing it in the future. I tried blowing all of the gunk out of my rock with a turkey baster, letting it settle on the sand, and then siphoning it out of the sand. This worked ok but it didn't get rid of all of it. I would like to automate this process so that most of the detritus gets removed without me having to do stuff like this all the time. Does anyone have any suggestions? I know I probably need more flow in the tank to keep the detritus water-born, but even if I do that, the detritus is just going to get sucked up into my skimmer's bio-bale which will then be stored there and is still inside the main circuit. Should I use some type of prefilter media? or do I need some other type of mechanical filtration? A guy at my LFS tried to sell me a $150 canister filter (I think it was a hot magnum) but something told me there is a cheaper solution here. Anyway, let me know what you guys think! thanks.

[eses]

I prefer some kind of mechanical filtration. Only problem is, you really need to clean it often. I clean mine every 2 days. I just have the water incoming to my sump flow through a filter pad. It works well, not as well as a canister or over-the-back filter..but well enough. I don't get a collection of detritus on the rocks, most of it is trapped in the sump, filter, and dsb. I have it set up so if the filter should clog, it won't back up the flow of water and cause an overflow.

A canister filter with a micron filter in it would does wonders, but clogs really quick, and canisters are a headache to clean overall. Not a big deal if your doing it once a month, but you should do it weekly in a marine tank.

Over the back filters work well, and are easier to service since you just pull out the filter pad and rinse it real quick. But you have to live with having one more thing plugged in, and one more filter intake coming down the back of your display. I've found they won't work well in-sump.

[Northman_with_reef]

Heres an easy, but ugly way to get exelent mechanical filtration..

Get a botle, saw off the bottom and fill it with filter floss...
Put this "filter" on one of your PH in the main tank.

It works great on my reef..

[bongobrian]

I have a bakpak 2 skimmer. I'm thinking I can use that as my "mechanical" filtration as well as my skimmer. I can just stir up my tank, run the bakpak, and let the biobale collect all the detritus. After this I will rinse the biobale and call it a day. Do you guys see any problems with this? I am planning on setting up a larger ecosystem which will have bioballs for the biological filtration. This should compensate for the biobale being rinsed all the time shouldn't it? I know when you rinse the bale with normal water it will kill most of the bacteria living on it. I don't really want to go through the trouble of rinsing it with tank water if I don't have to. Is there any problem with doing this? is it not a good idea to let bacteria to start growing on the biobale and then rinse it off? like I said, I'll have the bioballs in the fuge so that should compensate for it right? thanks guys.

[Northman_with_reef]

Sounds like a plan!

If you have clams, they might clog....that would require ALOT of detrius though..