I never rinsed my "sugar sand"...

[JT101]

...and I guess I'm paying the price

Hello all. Merry Belated Christmas. I've been off the board for a while, hope everyone is doing well.

I established my 46g soft coral reef tank about 2-3 years ago with really fine "sugar sand". I was told by a local LFS to NOT rinse it. I filled the tank very slowly with my RO/DI system so it didn't stir the bottom up too much. When the tank was filled I added salt, then ran the filtration system for a few days before I started cycling the tank.

It's been a few years now and I noticed that the times between when I stir my sand and the time I get brown gunk on it is getting less and less. This tells me my sandbed is "gunked up" and needs to be siphoned/cleaned.

Problem is, every time I stir the sand, I get these clouds of dust throughout the tank. It's a real eyesore and it gets all over the LR and corals.

I WANT to use one of those gravel filters, but with the sand being so fine it would probably just suck all the sand right up. This way, I might even be able to return the water right back into the tank, as my Diatom filter always "polishes" the water crystal-clear.

I was considering using my Vortex Diatom filter as the "intake" pump and putting a valve inline so I could really dial-down the suction pressure to be just enough to get the sand tumbling, but not enough to suck up anything other than the dust and mulm.

Is this a good idea? Is it worth cleaning this sand, or should I just try to suck it all out and put new, WASHED coarser sand (such as aragonite) on the bottom? PS - I might as well tell you I made the "rookie" mistake of putting all my LR ON TOP of the sand instead of the bottom, so I will not be able to take all the sand out around the LR without it shifting and possibly colliding with the glass :irked:

Any advice here? Anyone else have sugar sand bottoms?

Thanks to all for reading and for any help with this!

 

[JT101]

can I reuse sand siphon water?

Unfortunately I never heard anything on my other thread about sandbeds (maybe too wordy?) so I'll keep this one short and sweet

If I siphon out all my "dusty" sugar sand into a bucket and clean whatever water comes out with it by using a really good filter (like a diatom filter) can I put that water back in my tank?

 

[KathyC]

Threads combined..




Yes, you could put the water back into your tank. I assume you are going to siphon out the old sand bed in a way that it is not going through the diatom filter, and you are using the diatom filter to treat ONLY the water before adding it back to the tank?


The detritus coming up out of the sand bed would be there whether you'd originally used sugar sized sand or not if you are not actively stirring it on a regular basis and cleaning it.
It would not hurt to switch to a larger sized grain so that going forward you can vacuum the sand bed more often and more easily to keep it clean.

 

[JT101]

Thanks KathyC.

What I actually wound up doing was very different from what I initially proposed. I shut off all pumps and the skimmer and waited for the tank to settle. I then SLOWLY and CAREFULLY used a VERY fine mesh net to scoop the sand off the bottom and dumped each netful into a 5g bucket with about a gallon of freshly made ASW. I used the ASW to rinse off the net before dipping it back into the tank. Working my way around all the centrally-located LR I was able to take out 90% of the old sand. I didn't come across any grey or black (anoxic) areas and the sand didn't have any "rotten egg" odor. I wad going to lift the LR out, but "lazed out" and just left them in place. Even with this, moving as slowly as possible, thr tank was a dusty mess when I got done with it. I then ran my Vortex Diatom Filter and after a couple hours of constantly blowing off all the LR and corals with a "coral feeder" (a turkey baster on steroids) the tank GRADUALLY became crystal clear. I had to add about two gallons of fresh ASW to make up for the lost displacement now that most of the sand is gone. WHEW!! My back is shot but the tank looks great! Goodbye dust storms!

I'm going to keep the Vortex on overnight and tomorrow will pick up some fairly coarse sand like araganite. With the new sand I'll be able to actually vacuum it without getting clouds of dust all over everything.

 

[peteyboyny]

Why not get some snails to stir up the sand bed. Sand sifting goby? If you can get some livestock that continually stirs it up an cleans it, you might not have to do it manually.

 

[shmibly]

^^^ I agree with peteyboyny. Although youve managed to clean the sand, cyano and other gunk may still persist. If this is the case, to keep things clean get an animal that lightly turns over the sand. Certain gobies are good, sand sifting conch work well too, and of course, the snails. Hope all turns out as planned.