Dealing with "Fish Poop" corner

[Mercfh]

Pardon the title, but it's the best way I can describe it.

I currently have a 55g with a Fluval 407 (Intake on very left/back side, with output to the right of it slightly and shooting towards the inner tank (Although I have a fluval spray bar attachment).

Anyways, under the intake it seems like fish poop just collects, right underneath the intake (Which is fairly low). I have sand so of course it just sits on top.

Now....I don't know if the fish are going there to poop, or the water is kinda making everything "collect" there since thats where the intake is. But im curious if there is a way to fix this because it just looks SO bad.

Occasionally I will manually stir it up a bit, so the poop will float up to the intake but that's honestly a PITA. I put a river rock underneath to sorta give a higher flat surface for the intake to suck from, but doesn't seem to help much.

Any ideas? It's pretty strange it seems to all collect there. Doesn't seem to affect the water though (I change 1x a week) as the rest of the tank is quite clear.

[Tlindsey]

On 2/7/2024 at 9:42 PM, Mercfh said:

Pardon the title, but it's the best way I can describe it.

I currently have a 55g with a Fluval 407 (Intake on very left/back side, with output to the right of it slightly and shooting towards the inner tank (Although I have a fluval spray bar attachment).

Anyways, under the intake it seems like fish poop just collects, right underneath the intake (Which is fairly low). I have sand so of course it just sits on top.

Now....I don't know if the fish are going there to poop, or the water is kinda making everything "collect" there since thats where the intake is. But im curious if there is a way to fix this because it just looks SO bad.

Occasionally I will manually stir it up a bit, so the poop will float up to the intake but that's honestly a PITA. I put a river rock underneath to sorta give a higher flat surface for the intake to suck from, but doesn't seem to help much.

Any ideas? It's pretty strange it seems to all collect there. Doesn't seem to affect the water though (I change 1x a week) as the rest of the tank is quite clear.

I personally just siphon it up with a gravel vac during water changes. 

[Mercfh]

On 2/7/2024 at 10:38 PM, Tlindsey said:

I personally just siphon it up with a gravel vac during water changes. 

This is what I do on a weekly basis, but im mainly looking for something to help "in between". I know light colored sand especially shows stuff, but it's just all collecting in a single corner making it look SUPER bad.

[Tlindsey]

On 2/7/2024 at 10:48 PM, Mercfh said:

This is what I do on a weekly basis, but im mainly looking for something to help "in between". I know light colored sand especially shows stuff, but it's just all collecting in a single corner making it look SUPER bad.

I've read several threads where someone added a power head or  adjusted the flow of the filter. 

Edited February 8 by Tlindsey

[lefty o]

you would have to alter the flow in the aquarium, but in the end that just moves the poop around. ive also always noticed the area in front of and below the intakes for my filters tend to collect a bunch of solid waste. its just one of them things.

[Mercfh]

On 2/7/2024 at 10:59 PM, lefty o said:

you would have to alter the flow in the aquarium, but in the end that just moves the poop around. ive also always noticed the area in front of and below the intakes for my filters tend to collect a bunch of solid waste. its just one of them things.

Seems like it. Thankfully the new corys I have seem to kick up some of the waste which helps. I feel like the Fluval 407 intake is honestly pretty weak though.

[Galabar]

I figured the Fluval 407 would be reasonably sized for a 55 gallon and offer good flow.  However, if not, a power head (mentioned above) might be the solution.

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 2/7/2024 at 6:42 PM, Mercfh said:

Now....I don't know if the fish are going there to poop, or the water is kinda making everything "collect" there since thats where the intake is. But im curious if there is a way to fix this because it just looks SO bad.

Unfortunately it is part of the lengthy of the tank and the height of the tank. When you say you have the spraybar, how is it mounted and how is it pointing?

This was my setup on a 75G. The 55g is just a little narrower front to back. You would have to cut the pipe to size a little bit, but there is one side that doesn't have holes so it kind of works easily to find out how to cut the spraybar down.

[govsfabshop]

I would play with the positioning/ angles of your spray bar. Just little bits at a time and observe if anything changes, my 6' tank took a bit of playing with and got to the point of only having debris collect around decor, now that my geo's are getting a bit bigger and digging more everything seems to get put into the water column and collected. I've only siphoned that tank once or twice since getting the flow figured out. 

 

Now thats not to say there isnt a pooping corner! My puffer only uses one corner of the tank and leads to a constantly clogged powerhead prefilter. Havent got that one sorted out yet!

[Mercfh]

Spray bar is in the middle. My intake/outtake is like @nabokovfan87 is. But my spray bar is in the "middle/long" part.

@nabokovfan87 Would how yours is set up make all the poop just flow to the other end? (Unable to be sucked up?)

[nabokovfan87]

On 2/8/2024 at 6:07 PM, Mercfh said:

Spray bar is in the middle. My intake/outtake is like @nabokovfan87 is. But my spray bar is in the "middle/long" part.

@nabokovfan87 Would how yours is set up make all the poop just flow to the other end? (Unable to be sucked up?)

Basically it goes across the top of the tank, down the sidewall, then it goes across the length of the tank substrate... towards the inlet flow to remove the waste.  The only real issue / question is whether or not the the intake siphon is strong enough to remove the waste.  some of them aren't designed very well.