Aquarium Maintenance Tip:

Time for another helpful little aquarium tip from Reef Playground.

Todays tip is more about taking a preventative approach to your maintenance. We want to address a problem we encounter with a lot of our  new maintenance service saltwater clients; problematic live rock structure. Many aquarists simply think that more live rock is better. But that’s not always the case. If you plan on having a system with a heavy bio-load and large carrnivirous fish, simply stacking up live rock will actually hurt your system in the long run.

With a simple “pile” style live rock design, a lot of waste will end up accumulating behind and underneath he rock. Leading to buildup in organic material that will slowly build up the waste levels in the system as well as provide ample room for anwanted bacteria to flourish in the aquarium which could lead to “unexpected” infections of livestock down the line.

And that kind of problem leads to today’s maintenance tip. Structure your live rock as to allow good flow in between, behind, and underneath it. You can either design your water returns  to achieve this goal, or install multiple powerheads behind the rock to achieve the same results. This will cut back on physical maintenance of the aquarium system as well as increase the bio filtration potential of your live rock.

After a two week treatment with hydrogen paroxide, no significant change was seen in the fish with the exception of the shrnkage and temporary slow down of cotton growth near the gill area. Treatment was ineffective at the removal of the parasite.