How to keep the mulm to a minimum?

[tidalsculpin]

I have a 60 w/ 20 gallon sump. Coralife 65 skimmer/ refugium/a little polyfill in sump cleaned often.
7 fish mostly small, largest is a coral beauty. I'm done stocking fish and want to start stocking corals in a couple weeks.
So detritus seems to be a problem. I have an inch and a half of sand. The pretty small stuff but not sugar sized. My detritus seems awful.
I change water once a week. 7 gallons. I "python" my sand and blow off my rocks when I think of it. There are two hagen 50 power heads for flow and one rio 2500 driving the whole thing. My sand seems to have a tan goo and diatoms growing on top. Oh, by the way I have around 12 snails and maybe 10 blue legged hermits. Also, I feed twice a day except Sat. and Sun, the fish go on a diet.

Corals will be my next step once I am confident in my water quality.
Give me a few ideas here reef lovers.
Tested nitrates today -0 ppm. July 1 was the start of this tank.

[CCR]

Your feeding to often. me 3 days, some others 2 to 4 days, your get different opinions, 3 is good IMO
If frozen, thaw first, remove most liquid

[ringwurm]

I feed two or three times a day. Just keep the meals small if you want to feed often.

[Michael7979]

Is this the new tank you sey up a month ago? If it is some of the 'brown' sand look might be normal for a new tank. Try to keep more denitrus in suspension longer so the skimmer can do its job. Might want to think about adding another powerhead or changing the flow some. My $.02.

[Reefin']

i think they covered it......


If frozen, thaw first, remove most liquid



Just keep the meals small if you want to feed often.



Try to keep more denitrus in suspension longer so the skimmer can do its job. Might want to think about adding another powerhead or changing the flow some. My $.02.

[andy]

If frozen, thaw first, remove most liquid

Really? I thought that the 'juice' was appreciated by filter feeders. Now that I'm feeding Rotis and Phyto, I guess it doesn't much matter...

Edit: Also, Diatoms/Cyanobacteria is a phase that most new tanks go through. As the tank matures, it's supposed to subside. Me, I'm still fighting green mat algae; can't wait for the tank to GROW UP (threaten)

[impur]

Yup, diatoms are normal. Takes about a week or 2 and they will go away. Astrea snails eat it up quickly i've found. Do you have sand sifters?

[tidalsculpin]

Ok, so I have a few nassarius snails and one cave goby but he doesn't do much sand sifting.
Diatoms I expected. I guess I was just surprised how much muck the food creates. I use four varieties of food.
Frozen Brine caluerpa mix, omega 1 spirulina flake, omega 1 shrimp mix flake, and red sea pellets..

I alternate two times a day very small amounts of each except the frozen brine bit. I usually hold that in the tank until it melts all at once.

sounds like I need to limit to once a day and stop using shrimp flake and red sea pellets and use only half my frozen food per feeding. I guess I thought the coral beauty was a bigger eater.

Also, I changed direction today of my flow. I put a power head lower in the tank about 3 inches from the sand.

[Barelycuda]

I use a diamond goby for the sand sifting. I could not believe how much crap he pulled out of the sand. The tank has never looked better since adding him.

Cuda

[reefboy]

your going through natural tank growing pains but just keep doing what your doing im a big believer in feeding your system but thats me if you starve your system you dont get the diversitie of micro fauna in your sand or rocks but theres a point ware you can over do it so you have to be carful at first but eventualy the micro fauna builds up to the amount of food fed now not to say if you feed less you wont still have these animals but when you feed more populations bloom which in turn will pervide excess animals to feed fish and corals.

[vanz]

Will a diamond goby get a long with a blenny and dottyback?

[pledosophy]

IME Diamond goby and lawn mower blenny were fine together in a 65g.