Best way to prevent bacteria mulm on rocks?

[animalkingdom]

As the title suggests I am looking for the best ways to prevent bacteria mulm on rocks? I do carbon dose and am beginning to get the impression from others that it could attribute to the large amounts of bacterial mulm.

 

[WillM]

I dose vinegar and my LR was starting to look like it "needed a shave". I recently upped the flow in the tank and it has helped a lot. Look for a more non-linear/random flow to keep stuff from settling and then accumulating.

 

[alexander_ktn]

Snails (nerites, cowries etc.) also do an excellent job of cleaning the rocks from this biofilm.

 

[Allmost]

^^^ all above.

also blow the rocks with a small power head weekly.

 

[animalkingdom]

Snails (nerites, cowries etc.) also do an excellent job of cleaning the rocks from this biofilm.

will cowries live in a reef tank? I thought the temp would be too high

 

[keithhays]

Mulm is a dark waste (detritus) that accumulates at the bottom of the tank which will then get covered in bacteria. If the stuff you have is clear or white then it is just live bacteria and it is being caused from overdosing carbon. Just stop dosing until it goes away. If you can visually see the bacterial colonies then you don't need to dose, there are enough of them. When its gone and hopefully has not acquired a green color, then start dosing again, but with much less...say less than half.

 

[alexander_ktn]

will cowries live in a reef tank? I thought the temp would be too high

I've been keeping Ring Cowries (Cypraea annulus) for years in most of my tanks and never had problems. I also never heard of lower temperature requirements for them. I think you might confuse that with abalones.

 

[coralreefdoc]

Consider dosing Korallen Zucht/ZEOs specialty formulation/product "Bio Mate", since you already utilize carbon dosing techniques.

You'll like the results you get, if you patiently give it a few months ...

Come back here in 3 months of 3-5x weekly dosing, @ half the recommended dosage, and let me/us know the results

 

[animalkingdom]

Consider dosing Korallen Zucht/ZEOs specialty formulation/product "Bio Mate", since you already utilize carbon dosing techniques.

You'll like the results you get, if you patiently give it a few months ...

Come back here in 3 months of 3-5x weekly dosing, @ half the recommended dosage, and let me/us know the results

Thanks for the idea, but I like to keep things simple. The only things I put in my tank on purpose are Calcium(2part and kalkwasser), Alkalinity(2part and kalkwasser), and Carbon source (vodka or vinegar).

 

[animalkingdom]

Mulm is a dark waste (detritus) that accumulates at the bottom of the tank which will then get covered in bacteria. If the stuff you have is clear or white then it is just live bacteria and it is being caused from overdosing carbon. Just stop dosing until it goes away. If you can visually see the bacterial colonies then you don't need to dose, there are enough of them. When its gone and hopefully has not acquired a green color, then start dosing again, but with much less...say less than half.

Thanks for the info!

 

[coralreefdoc]

BioMate addition won't exactly complicate your system ...

Dose it for 6wks, if you're not satisfied with the results come back here and take it out on me

Confident it will improve your situation, exponentially !

 

[Sulcata102]

Why the half dose? i use the zeo system(main 4 and coral snow) now and in my slow flow fuge i get a brown coating on the deep sand bed. i thought i was getting cyno but could it be related to the mum your talking about? would the bio mate help me also?

 

[keithhays]

Why the half dose? i use the zeo system(main 4 and coral snow) now and in my slow flow fuge i get a brown coating on the deep sand bed. i thought i was getting cyno but could it be related to the mum your talking about? would the bio mate help me also?

Most brown coatings are diatoms, but could be cyano or something else, hard to tell without pics. If you feel it and it is brown and slimy it is likely cyano, or even dinoflagelletes.

Not related to zeo which is its own system, but for normal carbon dosing, you are trying to elevate certain types of bacteria specifically semi-anoxic denitrating bacteria without going so far that heterotrophic bacteria are visible in the water column or surface bacteria are actually visible. In many European systems, they will begin the dosing regimen slowly ramping up until they begin to see clouds in the water (heterotrophic bacteria) and then cut the dose in half. When elevated dosing is maintained indefinitely, all bacteria types will be elevated and some types you don't want to have elevated in a reef tank such as cyano.

I have seen studies where once you have achieved a certain dosage level within the system, there are no additional benefits to daily dosing; the level of bacteria in the system has been achieved and will stay at that elevated level for months after the ramp up. I have not seen this, but I have taken to only dosing when nitrate levels begin to rise again which is generally weeks and not the next day.

This is not true for systems that are purposely ramping up heterothopic bacteria in the water column because there is no substrate and the water column is constantly flushed with new water. This generally doesn't happen in reef tanks and is more common in the food fish industry. The reason I mention this is because, they will actually have quite a bit of mulm or detritus mixed with bacteria at the bottom of their tanks which they are purposely building and circulating to keep the bacterial counts up.

 

[Allmost]

Why the half dose? i use the zeo system(main 4 and coral snow) now and in my slow flow fuge i get a brown coating on the deep sand bed. i thought i was getting cyno but could it be related to the mum your talking about? would the bio mate help me also?

yes it can help, but the flow flow Fuge and DSB in it is actually hurting the system. its a nutrition sink for po4.

Id remove it if you are using Zeovit.

for me, I have a Zeovit system, so I dose Double dose of biomate, and the results are amazing, I agree with doc above.

sometimes some algae is seen when using this first, that is normal and we call it the "ugly period" after that the algae would disappear and you notice a large drop in po4 and mulm in general.

 

[Sulcata102]

I used to have bio pellets on the system and i never had a problem with my no4. since switching to the zeo system they hover around .03-.04(hanna checker). my nitrates always stay less than 1(salifert). maybe i'd be better switching back to the biopellets. do they typically have the same problem competing with the dsb and macros that the zeo does? or if i switch back would i still have the issue because of the dsb either way? i guess what i'm asking is do biopellets compliment the dsb better? would just removing the macros help?

 

[Sulcata102]

twice a week i check my po4. tonight i checked it and it is again .00. a week ago i hooked up my kalk reactor. I used to run my calcium reactor and kalk reactor for top off. but when i ran out of kalk awhile ago, i didn't notice any real drop in alk. i never bothered to fill it again. but i had been reading that the kalk might help reduce po4. well it seems like it might have. my reading on saturday will be interesting. hopefully this works and i can keep my dsb.