BB Questions

[adddo]

Hey

I have a couple of questions for the BB pro's

I have a 65g cube which is BB, planning for SPS and LPS dominated reef, the skimmer i use is a Deltec APF 600. The current flow is one Seio stream about 1100gph, one Seio stream 800gph and one MJ1200 200gph (used to blow detrius out from under rocks. And then i have the return that is approx 200gph. About 70-80pounds of LR

Now to my questions.

Is the skimmer enough? rated at 160ish gallon high stocking and 240gallon low stocked.

Is my flow enough? For now.. planning to add a Tunze nanostreamer when they are released (1200gph)

How often should i clean the bottom from detrius and other crap? (this means changing water also since i currently siphon the detrius out)

Is there a better way to clean the bottom then siphoning?

Sorry for any error in spelling or use of gallon (Im in Sweden so used to litres )

Thanks in advance.

 

[Wiskey]

Your spelling is better than mine, and I grew up here

I think the skimmer will be fine, but really the way to tell is to look for algae, if you start getting green algae turn that skimmer up if you hit a point when your skimmer is running super wet already and you still have green algae on your glass then look into a new skimmer.

I used to syphon daily, but it was a pain so I started doing it once a week and couldn't really notice a difference either way.

The flow is enough if it is getting most of the detritus off the bottom, if not get more.

The advantage with a tank like this is you can see what is happening, it is not hidden from you, look at what is happening and react to it is the best advice I think.

Oh, one other good peice of advice, use a turkey baster to syphon the detritus pile out, that way you only remove a very small amount of water. In the begining while your rock sheads you may be doing this often.

HTH,
Whiskey

 

[adddo]

Thanks Wiskey! Going to try and get one of those Turkey blasters for siphoning good idea!

 

[TCU Reefer]

I siphon once a week. I put a filter sock down in my sump and siphon into that. This way, detritus is removed without removing any water.

 

[petoonia]

We just clean the bottom whenever we do a water change. Hermit crabs, and my cleaner shrimp really help out on the BB

 

[boxfishpooalot]

bb is quite complicated sort of. Rocks are a huge sorce of nutrients, most full of oranics that will contribute to nitrates/phosphate.

One person has rocks without the holes/tunnels. He does good bb. The other guy has rocks with holes/tunnels, he does poorly at bb. Why, because one rock traps dirt, while the other does less so.

Its all about export of dirt, and where/how long it stays in one spot. Im beginning to think that rocks are a burden to bb tanks, unless your rocks are not so porus. That dirt will feed bacteria, and those bacteria will produce nitrates/phoshpates.

Who has more nitrate/phosphate assimilations will win the bb game.

 

[gman0526]

The problem is not the rocks, the problem is how addecuate is your flow in taking everything to your skimmer. If you have anything settling then you'll have issues.

 

[boxfishpooalot]

Answer this ,

What happens when food, dirt, a dead fish, or anything non living that is organic gets trapped inside of a rocks pocket/pores?

 

[gman0526]

If you have good flow properly placed you wouldn't have the problem.

 

[King-Kong]

I do have some rocks which collect detritus despite being in the path of 2600gph of glass-deflected current. Flow strong enough to cause SPS to retract corals and receed, but detritus still can hold on.

Ofocurse, now my issue sint detritus on the bottom -- it's detritus on the rocks. (I currently have 6500 gph in a 90g)

 

[petoonia]

We tried the higher GPH, but our anemone became very unhappy. So we just clean the bottom regularly. The crabs and shrimp take care of any leftover food rather quickly.

 

[adddo]

Ok, thanks for the advice, ill try siphoning with a filtersock also, Thanks for the tip TCU.

 

[adddo]

Dont want to come out as stupid here, but i have a question that might be wieved as such.

When talking about the flow being able to stirr up the detrius so that the overflow takes it to the skimmer. That doesnt mean that the big chunks of .. well.. crap needs to be stirred up and down to the skimmer does it? Cause then i'd need tons of more flow. As it is now the bigger chunks collects at the corner under the SEIO's for me to siphon out easily, and im guessing that the finer particles of detrius is being stirred up enough..

Please tell me i dont need to have flow that makes the poop whirl around down to the sump?

Thanks in advance.

 

[gman0526]

That's exactly what it means. But.. if you do your syphoning diligently and very little is settling on the rock (be it from fish,etc or from the bacteria in the rock itself) then there should be no big deal.

It is not how much water volume you're moving it is how good you use it, you could have 30,000 GPH in the tank and have a big whirlpool in there that won't let anything get to the skimmers. Is it useful flow? Not for waste removal. HTH