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Detritus in the aquarium

castle

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With the addition of dead leaves, branches, fallen leaves from stems my aquarium has quite a lot of detritus throughout the tank. I'd like to understand this more.

Should I look to remove as much of it as I can during a water change? I always do, but I feel like I'm removing 'nature'. Should I just remove water?

How do aquariums with low flow manage to remain stable (filter not moving any detritus, removing minimal particles), is it regular water changes?

I understand that a leaf that has just dropped from a stem is going to be degrading fast than an oak leaf I added at the back, is it the degrading that is 'polluting' the water column? At what stage will this organic waste become bad for fish? Is it bad for fish just because the degrading uses a lot of oxygen, removing oxygen from the water?

How do these blackwater minimal leaf covered tanks not show tonnes of detritus, or are their owners doing a good clean the day before the photo?
 
Hi all,
With the addition of dead leaves, branches, fallen leaves from stems my aquarium has quite a lot of detritus throughout the tank. I'd like to understand this more. Should I look to remove as much of it as I can during a water change? I always do, but I feel like I'm removing 'nature'. Should I just remove water?
It is entirely up to you.

I usually remove dead leaves from the aquarium plants, but I don't worry too much about the fragments of <"structural leaf litter">.
is it the degrading that is 'polluting' the water column? At what stage will this organic waste become bad for fish? Is it bad for fish just because the degrading uses a lot of oxygen, removing oxygen from the water?
Yes that is it. I use the <"Biochemical Oxygen Demand BOD"> concept for all these things, if they don't contain any easily <"microbially oxidisable compounds">, then they aren't very polluting.
How do these blackwater minimal leaf covered tanks not show tonnes of detritus, or are their owners doing a good clean the day before the photo?
Good clean would be my guess, or just with the beech leaves etc. added immediately before the photo.

This is from <"All the leaves are Brown">, and this is what Colin Dunlop said:

Leaves can be left in the aquarium to break down and will not harm livestock © Colin Dunlop
You do not need to remove the leaves after a period of time as they gradually break down altogether and can be simply replenished by adding more to the tank. Some leaves will last much longer than others and again using my two earlier examples; Indian almond leaves may only last a couple of months whereas beech leaves may take more than six months to break down.
You would need to access facebook, but if you go to <"The Fish Hut facebook group"> you can see the riparium where Colin keeps his Channa aurantimaculata. It is the post from 22nd June.

cheers Darrel
 
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Thanks, for replying @dw1305 , very helpful
 
Yeah I have, but I wanted to see a lot more - I've gone a rabbit hole there. That style of tank is very unique, mainly as most of our partners would never allow such a thing! Also ordering the badis publication the https://www.aagb.org/ have recently released. Still quite proud that I've bred b.badis.

If I was to add a constant oxygen supply to my aquarium, could I effectively skip water changes? or am I missing something?

school like question: What would it be called if there is too much nutrients in the water? What would the effects of this be?
 
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Hi all,
If I was to add a constant oxygen supply to my aquarium, could I effectively skip water changes? or am I missing something?
Theoretically you could, but having <"water changes makes things a lot easier">.

I also believe that Channa spp. are a <"bit different to most other fish">, but they aren't a fish I've kept.

Marine Aquarists use live rock and deep-sand beds to try and reduce water changes, while maintaining water quality. In aquaculture they also often try to reduce water changes to a minimum, by having very effective microbial nitrification and denitrification, in things like <"long path plug flow reactors">. Waste water treatment has looked at complete oxidation, in the <"extended aeration system">, and the temporal separation of the aerobic nitrification and anaerobic denitrification (in the <"ANAMMOX"> process).

If I was forced to reduce water changes to a minimum I would use <"a planted trickle filter">, that would potentially give you <"plant/microbe biofiltration"> and a huge gas exchange surface. From <"http://biofilters.com/LONGPATH3.htm">
.........Trickling Filters - These are very good plug flow reactors, but the path is short. The short path drawback can be overcome by using several trickling filters in series but the energy required for all the pumping would make it uneconomical. Trickling filters are the best all around biofilters due to their ability to do gas exchange and biofiltration. Their only real drawback is the pump head required to lift the water up to the top of the filter.......
cheers Darrel
 
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How do aquariums with low flow manage to remain stable (filter not moving any detritus, removing minimal particles), is it regular water changes?

IMO , Yes as if you leave the detritus it will lead to an increase in DOC which regular WCs will help keep the DOC low so less chance of aglae issues as algae thrives in tank with high DOC levels.

But as always watch your plants/tank if algae isn't an issue and plants are healthy then is there a need of a WC
 
Hi,

I use a spraybar aimed towards the surface to keep my leaves (and detritus) from flowing through the tank. Helps with getting enough oxygen too of course.

DSC_0020-01 (1).jpg


This is an old pic of my small West African themed aquarium. The beach leaves have been in there for almost two years now. Almost 100% RO water helps keeping these leaves intact.
 
Hi,

I use a spraybar aimed towards the surface to keep my leaves (and detritus) from flowing through the tank. Helps with getting enough oxygen too of course.

View attachment 152390

This is an old pic of my small West African themed aquarium. The beach leaves have been in there for almost two years now. Almost 100% RO water helps keeping these leaves intact.
Lovely looking tank, how often are you syphoning out from the bottom?

How would hard water effect the system?
 
IMO , Yes as if you leave the detritus it will lead to an increase in DOC which regular WCs will help keep the DOC low so less chance of aglae issues as algae thrives in tank with high DOC levels.

But as always watch your plants/tank if algae isn't an issue and plants are healthy then is there a need of a WC
Yes, fresh detritus will release polluting DOC of which WC can effectively removed. But what about aged detritus. Is it inert, harmless and non polluting? What is left in aged detritus?
 
Yes, fresh detritus will release polluting DOC of which WC can effectively removed. But what about aged detritus. Is it inert, harmless and non polluting? What is left in aged detritus?

IMO, once its fully broken down like so say its inert so therefore relatively harmless, its presence may block light or reduce flow in area, but if it collects in an area that's know or seen it can be relatively easily removed
 
I'm just syphoning out a 3" layer of manado and tropica soil that's been in situ for 8 years or so. I never syphoned over that period because it was completely covered with plants. I'm doing a little at a time and you won't believe how filthy that 20 liter bucket gets with detritus from just a couple of liters of substrate but to the best of my knowledge/experience, even this heavily detritus filled substrate, has had no negative, I actually think positive, effects. I'm of the opinion that it gets processed to a point where it's inert and I only really decided to change it as I was going to do a small area of sand but really liked the extra height and potential to play with levels, that I saw when I removed some from the front.
 
IMO, once its fully broken down like so say its inert so therefore relatively harmless, its presence may block light or reduce flow in area, but if it collects in an area that's know or seen it can be relatively easily removed
My belief is the same in that the detritus is largely inert. I did an experiment long time ago to find out if detritus contribute to nitrate pollution. I dropped a dirty filter pad in a jar of clean, dechlor tap water and monitor for nitrate thereafter. There was no detection of nitrate for days after.

Detritus is made up of decaying plant debris and fish poop. I believe plant debris and fish poop are predominantly fibre as fish excrete ammonia through gills and urine, whereas decaying leaves have long leaked out DOC. Detritus will be a significant source of DOC only if you overfeed your fish with uneaten food or with live food that is harder to digest thoroughly.
 
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