Proper cleaning of your Nano Cube

[artarmon42]

As background, I have Live Rock in the left chamber all the way to the top. My middle chamber has LR half way up, and Chaeto for the rest. My right chamber has Rowaphos & Purigen, along with my pump.

 

As part of my monthly maintenance, I do a full check of the whole system and clean as necessary. This time, I decided to take some pictures to inspire people to do "proper" maintenance.

 

Here's my right chamber...

 

In case you're missing the point, here's a (slightly blurry) close up...

 

Yup, that's bits of Chaeto clogging the intake to my MJ-606.

 

Here are 3 thoughts I'd like to leave you with:

1) Crap stuck to the powerhead will lower water flow (best case) and generates more heat as the engine strains against the crap stuck in the impeller.

2) Chaeto at that depth, without sufficient light, will break down. Like any decomposing material, if left unattended, will release nitrates/phosphates into the system.

3) Look at that "sand" (aka crud) at the bottom of the chamber. I run a bare-bottom tank, and have never had sand in my tank. That's the crap that comes off the LR (I know because I vacuum that stuff out of the display section every week). I bet most people who have live sand in their tanks don't even know that stuff gets released.

What you see in that chamber (and it's a pretty thick layer) is accumulation from less than 1 month.

 

IMHO, after over-feeding, insufficient tank maintenance is the most likely cause of algae break outs.