Where does all that detritus end up??

[danmhippo]

Who can answer this? If we do not siphon out the detritus, what happened to them? How far will the detritus break down? Some must not could have been broken down completely! I agree with Dave that there are detritus everywhere, where you don't see (eg. under the rocks, in refugium...etc).

So, are we supposed to siphon out detritus once in awhile, or are we supposed to leave them in there for detrivore? After being consumed by detrivores, some more is being generated, then what?

 

[davelin315]

I think that a good portion of it does not get used up as you referred to some comments I made before. However, it will settle into your sand bed at some point, and will appear to disappear. Just look at what happens if you stir your sand bed, your tank gets cloudy, not only with fine sediment (some of which may be very old detritus) but with waste etc. IMO, that's one of the reasons moving a DSB can cause so many problems (and people who have done it have talked about how their water quality sometimes plunged), you stir up all the settled detritus. Also, as I mentioned before, a lot of it ends up in places you don't think it will be like under rocks etc.

 

[danmhippo]

This being said, if accidental disturbance of sand bed could pose such a serious problem, THEN, should we siphon out the detritus while we can see it? Why wait for the potential disaster to happen?

 

[2poor2reef]

I would assume that some portion of detritus is inorganic, ash and so forth. That inorganic detritus is not going to be consumed. Eventually it will work its way into, and become part of, the substrate. That would be my guess.

 

[tomocean]

I would think that in a balanced system, with a sufficient number of detrivores, most of the waste material is going to end up being consumed. What little that doesn't end up as living tissue becomes part of the substrate. I suppose over a very long length of time this sediment would become evident in your tank, but it doesn't happen fast enough to notice. Just my educated guess.