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Invertebrates in sump for detritus

L/B Block

Supporting Member
Does anyone ever put any shrimp or anything in their sump to deal with detritus?

There are some snails in there now that sneaked in there and a lot of copepods but not enough to do the job. Yes I can and do vacuum it ever so often but sometimes a few bucks is well spent letting biology do the “sweeping”

My only concern is the protein skimmer sucking them in on occasion.

Just curious
 
Several types of snails, bristle worms, micro brittle stars, asterina stars, cop/amphipods. Plus occaional new or bully fish lol. Their in the chamber with about 30-40ish pounds of rock after the skimmer chamber..maybe some plastic mesh zip tied over your skimmer intake. Although most of the crap the socks take care of trapping before the skimmer
 
I use a mesh divider between my first chamber where I keep my rocks, chaeto and hopefully detritus and bistleworms, pods, snails and some crabs and the 2nd chamber where the skimmer is.
 
Several types of snails, bristle worms, micro brittle stars, asterina stars, cop/amphipods. Plus occaional new or bully fish lol. Their in the chamber with about 30-40ish pounds of rock after the skimmer chamber..maybe some plastic mesh zip tied over your skimmer intake. Although most of the crap the socks take care of trapping before the skimmer
Rollermat gets 95% of it but sometimes water gets through the emergency tube..
 
My new tank has been up and running Since beginning of year, and interestingly except for a brief period when I saw some amphipods for a few weeks, now I see zero.

Should this be a concern? Should I be trying to seed with pods?

FYI - I have an AIO with divided chambers in the back (in order of intake flow):
Chamber 1: Filter pad, heater, inline/AIO skimmer
Chamber 2: Filter pad->Xport BioCubes->ROX carbon or Chemipure Elite
Chamber 3: Return pump (thermometer, Tunze ATO)
 
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