What about detritus cleanup crew poo?

[Vincerama]

OK, so if detritus eating critters basically eat the poo of other creatures...don't they just poo out more detritus?

 

I have 2 nassarius snails, which are apparently insufficient to eat all the detritus in my tank. But really, adding more detritus eaters are just going to convert the poo from one form to another, isn't that right?

 

I guess the idea is that the poo breaks down into stuff that the bacteria can eat, etc...and through the ANN process, the end result is stuff that can be cleaned via protein skimming or water changes...but there still seems to be a lot of poo around the floor of the tank!

 

I don't want to gravel vac the tank for fear of sucking up all that life that is running around (and pooing). The pods don't seem that interested in poo either....

 

Should I get more (and varied) poo eaters?

 

V

 

PS. Yes, I just like to say the word "poo".

[shift_9k]

ummmm...... bump?

[jayjay1976]

what exactly do you have against poo? I like the 'ambience' of a healthy, poo-speckled substrate shimmering under the cool glow of my metal halide.

 

I'm just taking a wild guess here, and I am no expert, but fish and other first-order waste producers only absorb a fraction of the nutrients from the food they eat, then crap it out partially digested. The clean up crew eat this and extract more nutrients from the waste. They are efficient at extracting energy from waste and algae so their poo contains very little nutrients.

 

In essence the food that you put into the tank is filtered down progressively through the food chain, and the left overs are processed by your nitrifying bacterial colonies from ammonia to nitrite to nitrate which fuels macro algae growth, and are finally removed from the system when you prune overgrown macro algae.

 

jayjay