# Stir things up



## Paul B (Aug 4, 2009)

Yes, I know, stupid title.
I don't know about you guys but I like to try to keep things natural. A perfectly clean sterile envirnment is neither natural or healthy.
We all have a little detritus hiding somewhere, some of us have mountains of it. This material is mostly beingn but it is composed up of organic and inorganic material. It also compromises some of the food for corals especially SPS corals including gorgonians and gonopora.
Every day or two I like to stir things up using this. I also use this to feed and would never just put food in my tank without target feeding every animal.
My tank is gravel and there is a lot of matter that will get suspended when I blast water at it. I also blast the rocks to clean out the pores. A few times a year I use a diatom filter to eliminate the excess of this material.
The corals and fish seem to really enjoy this and I do also. Of course the tank looks like Half and Half for a few minutes but I kind of like Half and Half.
I have to be careful not to over do this because from experience I have found that small pipefish die from too much suspended matter and I have lost a few of them after a home made typhoon from my diatom filter.
Have a great day


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## BigandUgly (Sep 24, 2009)

Just about every day after work I use a turkey baster to blast my rocks and the top layer of gravel in my tank. My fish try to eat everything that floats around. After everything settles I pull my filter media and give it a good rinse. It really does pick up a lot of funk. 

Since I've started doing this I've noticed a lot less algae growing in the tank. Probably because there is less funk breaking down and producing dissolved nutrients. It appears good for the tank, and I like doing it, even though my wife makes fun of me for it.


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## scribbles (Nov 1, 2009)

I have been doing this every night for about 2 weeks, algae had gone down noticeably and everything is looking much better. For the first week or so I could only target 1 rock a night because if a thick later or crud that was coming out of the live rock. Overall algae growth has dropped noticeably and I have no cuc right now, it was horrible before. I have also done a 2 gallon WC every other night for the last 2 weeks, 21g nano.


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## Paul B (Aug 4, 2009)

I have been stirring up the gravel whenever I can for 4 decades.
So far, no problems


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