How to deal with Detritus?
 

So with the growth of all my caulerpa's i'm starting to deal with detritus issues, in at least 2-3 spots in the tank I have mounds of stuff building up. I've got 3 Koralia 850's running to keep water moving. I run the tank skimmerless with just a mechanical filter I run to polish the water after a water change.

Any Suggestions? Should I just deal with it? bigger pumps? get a skimmer?

I really like running skimmerless as I feel it lets me keep a lot more microfauna alive in the system.

I think I would try just syphoning it out.

Detrivores! Got a sea cucumber? Worms, pods and some fish (like pygmy angels) eat it too.

Planted tanks produce a lot to detritus. Even with a good detrivore crew, it piled up in my tank too. Some is good for the tank. But if it gets to be too much, vacuum during water changes. In our closed systems, we don't have the tides to tidy up for us. An occasional vacuum provides an analog.

In that case vacuuming it is! I am actually ok with that, I've always been good at siphoning debris off the sand without including the sand as well. What are the limits with sea cucumbers? I'd worry that with as much algae growth as I have on the sandbed it would not be able to navigate.

The only limits I've encountered with cucumbers is they can gradually starve to death. So if you decide to add one, I'd recommend letting detritus build up. Even then, you may not have enough surface area to support one. Introducing worms and serpent stars may be a better option. GCE's live sand is my favorite. If you like to keep things vacuumed, I'd skip it, and basically you are the cucumber.

I got a thing of GCE's live sand and I see plenty of life in the system, I'll just take care of it myself, seems the easiest way.

I had a very plain looking Atlantic cucumber that did a good job in my 36 gallon bowfront. I had it a couple of years before I rehomed him, so he must have been getting enough to eat.

I have a cucumber 2 yrs now - holothuria impatiens - they can squeeze into any space, or climb anything.
I still have detritus that accumulates, but he does a lot of work.

If you can run a filtersock or 50 or 100 micron filter pad get a powerhead and before you do a water change turn up the powerheads in the tank then take the powerhead and blow everything off of the sand and rocks until it gets kind of clear then do the water change