sandman Posted June 13, 2015 Report Share Posted June 13, 2015 I have just set up a new tank 120 litre fine black sand a few river stones and a nice piece of drift wood. A good collection of plants and around 6 fish. Two of theses fish are bristle nose plecos. These two arn't big but my do they poo, thy are on that driftwood all the time and that's the poo drift wood. I have a aqua one clearwater h500 but it doesn't seem to clear the stuff out. I have to vacuum every two days which is a pain. Is there anything else I could do to control this other than removing them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrienne Posted June 13, 2015 Report Share Posted June 13, 2015 Plecos are notorious poo machines More filtration would help. An external cannister filter on your tank would work. Basically, if you don't want to syphon it out then you need high enough filtration and movement in your tank to flush the waste into the filter strainer so it ends up in the filter. The filter you have is minimal size for your tank as recommended is 4 - 8 times turnover per hour and the rating is generally done when there is no media or sponges in the filter. Do you have the intake strainer as low in the tank as it will go? If it is near the bottom you could try putting a power head in to blow the waste towards it. Removing the bn will stop that source of waste of but then you are removing a very good way of keeping algae out of your tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjansss Posted June 13, 2015 Report Share Posted June 13, 2015 Maybe you could get Java moss on the dirft wood it might help control the poo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Posted June 13, 2015 Report Share Posted June 13, 2015 Maybe you could get Java moss on the dirft wood it might help control the poo Java moss doesn't control it, it just collects it and turns into a giant mass of poop waiting to spew out crap and debris at the slightest touch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaide Posted December 19, 2015 Report Share Posted December 19, 2015 Get some cories! They flick up the poop as they woosh around the bottom so the filter can pick it up. The silica sand in my tanks is clean because of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexyay Posted December 23, 2015 Report Share Posted December 23, 2015 Filtration! Canisters can be a great help - adding pre-filter sponges also allows them to collect the poop and is easy to regularly access & clean. I also have had wavemakers pointed towards the filter intake, and good quality internal filters to be purely filled with sponge and work as mechanical filtration. when I had 3 BNs in a small quarantine bay with a sponge filter, I had to keep the tank bare-bottom and siphoned the heap of poop weekly. The addition of an internal filter was immensely useful (I'd just clean the sponges weekly, though there was still siphoning to do). Whatever form of mechanical filtration you use*, you do need to make sure you clean it out regularly. This is because it'll eventually become clumped up and do the job poorly, and because cleaning it helps to remove waste before it breaks down - making it an efficient way to control Nitrates. *Mechanical media is the filter media that catches debris, unlike Biological media which is used for the Nitrification cycle, although it will still hold bacteria. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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