sedement on rocks

[10gnano]

Hey guys/gals
I have a 15g Nano reef tank. I hav elots of live rock in it, 18 lbs or so. I am struggling with a problem.  I a seem to be getting a whitish dust collecting on my rocks. I have had this tank operating for almost a year now. I have two spong filters in the back, I have tried using cottone batton to collect what ever this is. I thought first that it was becasue I had to much calcium in the water, so i stopped adding for over a month, I do regular RO water changes. I cant figure this one out

[tskinner]

Might be just detrisus settling on your rocks or small sand particles land on your rocks.  Whenever I do a water change I use a turkey baster and blow off the rocks before I take the water out.

[10gnano]

i use the turkey baster every day to move the debris off the rocks. when i look at other tanks i dont notice this problem

[tskinner]

Not sure.  What are you using for flow? 

[10gnano]

i have the rugelar filter pump and an aqua clear 20 pump

[tskinner]

Maybe increasing your flow might stop the stuff from settling.  I have a 20 gallon and I have a Koralia Nano(240 GPH), a Koralia 1(400GPH) and a flow from my skimmer(230GPH)....

[jcmh]

Do you have a protein skimmer?

How many in your cleanup crew?

[10gnano]

i have 1 red hermit crab, 4 snails and an urchin, i have had trouble with keeping hermit crabs for some reason, so i bought a red one, any suggestions will help, i do not have a protien skimmer.

[Tyler.L]

was the rock pretty fresh, well cured, but new....cause it still has die off from the store to home....what you can do considering its such a small tank just take all the rock out and do a 100% water change and with the old water rinse all the rock off in that and put the rock back in with the new water and should be good also you get a fresh water change....also bump up the clean up crew.....get a few more hermits, what is most likely happening with your hermit situation is the hermits are killing eachother if you were getting blue legs, and there werent enough shells for them to chose from, so they started killing each other for the shells and were left with nothing. I like snails myself but scarlet hermits are awsome but they are a bit pricey. Flow is also another thing but try rinsing the rock off and putting it back in see how that goes. Flow is always good and is easy to add...

[10gnano]

i will try by adding more scarlet hermits. I had up to 6 blue legged crabs but now i have 1 left. I have actually taken all the rock out and rinsed them in salt water and scrubbed them with a tooth brush and placed them back in, that didnt seem to help but gave me the opertunity to re-landscape. i

[tskinner]

I would suspect the problem to be lack of flow.  The Aquaclear 20 powerhead only puts out about 126 GPH.  What kind of hob filter is it that your running.  I would try adding more flow before adding more CUC.  If its just stuff settling on your rocks more flow with would keep it suspended in the water column and be easier to be sucked out by your hob.  Just my opinion.

[J]

Are you adding ANYTHING to your water other than salt? What brand of salt are you using?

[10gnano]

i have been adding things for my corals but this has been happening since before that. the salt i use is instant ocean sea salt

[Vincenzo.]

do you have a scooter blenny? it may be just substrate being fired out from his gills.
do you have corals yet? it may just be coral waste
do you have snails? it might be the sludge from them
do you play with your filters? might be the sediment on the bottom being shot back out

none the less, it does not seem like a problem

[J]

Well, all the advice I can give is...don't over feed, turkey baste your LR before every water change, make sure you add salt to water and not water to salt when mixing and avoid adding calcium supplements right after water changes.

[10gnano]

well i have increased the flow of my power head, and added 4 more hermit crabs ( african hermits from Ricks hobby and aquaria) I will keep you guys posted if anything changes

[mikerobart]

What's you KH like?