Controling Waste Buildup in a Low Flow Biotope

[bobblehead27]

If you were willing to cheat on the biotope, MTS do a great job of breaking down detritus. Itll either be buried or end up in the water column where it can be removed.

As long as you don't mind LOTS of snails. They breed so quickly until they hit their equilibrium of how much food and space you have to support their population

 

[Zanzag]

Hey it is a pretty fair trade off for losing bottom debris

 

[TheFishDodo]

If you were willing to cheat on the biotope, MTS do a great job of breaking down detritus. Itll either be buried or end up in the water column where it can be removed.

I want to keep the biotope as specific as possible. I have 1 ramshorn snail which is got as a hitchhiker with my tetras and thats the only snail I plan to have. Maybe I'll get a mystery snail as they fit the biotope.

 

[tiger15]

Trying to set up a filtration system to pick up all detritus will not work unless it is a bare bottom tank with no obstructions. With substrate and ornaments, detritus will inevitably get trapped somewhere, and the only way to get rid of it is regular siphoning. If you see detritus sit uniformly over the substrate, your circulation flow is too low. At higher flow, detritus will get blown up, some picked up by the filter, and other trapped underneath rock and ornaments. It’s a good thing to me as the substrate will look clean, and I can target siphon off the trapped detritus underneath ornaments in weekly WC, while not overloading my filters.

The remedy for you is to add a second circulation pump to increase flow over the substrate, or replace with a stronger wave maker that can oscilate flow directions. I don’t think tetra and plants are bothered and likely benefited by moderate current, as I keep a 125 planted tank with two schools of tetra, 3 hobs and a circulation pump to provide 10X turn over rate per hour. If too strong flow is your concern, you can always plug your circulation pump to a timer to operate only abrief period daily