Clean up time?

[Octoberfish]

After the tank becomes 10 years old... 72 gal , 100 lbs of live rock, sump. Do any of you find a build up of detritus on the rock? kinda like a house with dusty furniture? I siphon out water when changing it and try to clear off the rock but to no avail. Do you guys remove your live rock for cleaning periodically? I do rearrange the scenery once in a while but... I think Im missing something?? any help?

 

[geridoc]

Had my 110 gallon tank up for 19 years without doing anything other than using a turkey baster to blow off the rocks, and siphoning some detritus off of the bottom during water changes. The only reason I took the tank down was to replace it with a 220 gallon tank, converting the 110 into the sump in the basement.

 

[jay0705]

Agreed, if you have build up, increasing flow over the rock should help

 

[one-fish]

Agreed, if you have build up, increasing flow over the rock should help

Other than want is noted above You may want to update your powerheads or move them around to create different current angles also look into restocking your clean up crew depending on what your defining as Dusty. 10 year old tank you must be doing something good... Cheers !!!

 

[2quills]

When I upgraded my power heads and tested them out at nearly full blast they stirred up detritus in the rock work I never knew I had.

Since then I've made it a point every couple of weeks to run them on high for a few moments to stir everything up then tone it down a bit to keep it suspended.

Then I have a separate pump in my sump hooked up to a filter sock strictly for mechanical filtration when I want it.

I crank the filter pump on and within an hour the water and display is virtually clean of all detritus. Or as close to it as I can get.

This has worked extremely well over the last 10-12 months.