best way to clean cheatoe

[o0jmadr0x0o]

every time i trim down my cheatoe a gang of detritus pours out of it. it is in a 50g fuge, so there is a lot of cheatoe. is there a good way for my to pull out the whole mass of it and get all the crap out without killing all the microfauna in it?

 

[Dzel]

I just tumble mine with a power head and it doesn't get anything in it

 

[o0jmadr0x0o]

i have a maxijet 1200 with the mod and a sieo 820 pointing right at it. i think if anything this just pushes more deitrus into the cheatoe

 

[Frogmanx82]

Wash it in a bucket of rodi water. Mine doesn't seem any worse off for a quick freshwater dip and you can kill off some unwanted pests. Comes out very clean.

Alternately, you could wash it in tank water from a water changes.

 

[1904]

been wondering about this

been wondering about this

anyone think it is better to leave it dirty as not to kill off any helpful bacteria/?
I like the look of clean chato but if its bad to rinse it.

 

[ludnix]

The bacteria in there would be pretty negligible, you might worry about other animals like stomatellas, stars, pods and worms living it, but even those are not going to have a big impact by losing them.

I leave mine alone and it manages to stay clean on it's own. I'm not entirely sure why, but I seem to have a higher turn over rate in my sump than most people. there is a huge amount of pods and worms running through as well which I imagine help devour any detritus.