Readings and water change

[louoner]

Ok guys just a question. When sometimes I check my perms and I do a water change my corals don't look all that great. I leave it along and pretend that every is good and they stay looking good and happy. Anybody else with this problem sometimes?

 

[ourcoralreef]

Are you sturing up all your sand you could be leaching stuff into your water by doing drastic stuff like mooving all your sand or going all the way to the bottom
Also messing with your tank a lot stresses everything out
What do you do when you clean your tank what tools do you use and how do you do it

 

[frvarugh]

I'm curious now...my nitrates run steady on the higher end (30 -40ppm). I regularly stir my sand bed, almost every week. My sand bed is very shallow, maybe 2-3 inches max at certain parts. Is it a bad thing to stir sand bed if I do it regularly? Or should I leave it.

 

[aaron23]

its good to stir the sandbed and suck up all the decaying matter in the sandbed during water changes

 

[ourcoralreef]

2-3 inched is not shallow if you are doing it weekly and your doing all of it its less of a problem because your not letting anything build up in it
You will get different opinions and depending on who you ask if its better not to touch a sandbed or to regularly move the top layer i personally feel while doing maintenance siphoning the sandbed it a good thing (not doing the whole sandbed at once and ony the top inch or two and sections of the aquarium at a time) helps keep the detritus and the other stuff to a minimum
I also put a bunch of nassarius snails so they aerate the sand and dont let the sand get to a toxic level they do eat some of the good "bugs etc" but i feel its a good trade off in a in the long run for a established reef
sand in general is a 50/50 subject some people say your better off without it and some say as long as you keep in nice and clean you should be good
Back to your question Nitrates can leach from your sand if you don't actually clean it and your just mixing it your putting all that extra food and detritus into the sand and then your stirring it up the nex week again i would recommend siphoning it (every week or every two weeks) and getting all the dirt and extra food out of your sand and buying some snails to "stir the sand for you"

 

[oh207]

I'm not sure if the OP actually stirs the sandbed during water changes, but if he does, then thats certainly a good reason why corals might not be happy.

Other things to consider is,
How long was the salt mixed for? Was it mixed with a powerhead for at least x amount of hours as per manufacturers recommendation?
What was the temperature of the newly mixed water?

I personally DO NOT stir my sandbed. If I do, everything will surely die since its been untouched since the first day of setup.

I do however have about 50 Naussurius snails, 2 sand sifting starfish, and several wrasses that buries into the sand to sleep every night. Each night as the light turns blue, the wrasses takes their turn going to bed. My melanarus does it like clockwork, he has a certain swimming motion and then he dives. Same goes for the Leopard wrasse.


Sent from my SM-NCC-1701C using Tapatalk

 

[NStephenson]

I agree that Sand bed maintenance or lack there of is 50/50 in the hobby. However, it is important to understand the functions of the sand bed and what happens when it is disturbed. So if we look at a simple sandbed below;

1" or more sandbed:
Contains detritus first and foremost. Therefore contains nitrates, phosphates & etc.
Ideally contains beneficial micro-organisms
Houses Clean up Crew (CUC)

So when this is stirred in any major way it releases some of the detritus and detritus waste (nitrates, phosphates & etc) into the water column. If you do not remove some of the water and waste after a major sandbed disturbance then some chemicals will spike in the tank. Nitrates and Phosphates being the prime suspects in terms of coral happiness.

(Note: An established and well skimmed system should be able to mitigate small spikes in these cases)

Hope this helps...

 

[ourcoralreef]

I agree that Sand bed maintenance or lack there of is 50/50 in the hobby. However, it is important to understand the functions of the sand bed and what happens when it is disturbed. So if we look at a simple sandbed below;

1" or more sandbed:
Contains detritus first and foremost. Therefore contains nitrates, phosphates & etc.
Ideally contains beneficial micro-organisms
Houses Clean up Crew (CUC)

So when this is stirred in any major way it releases some of the detritus and detritus waste (nitrates, phosphates & etc) into the water column. If you do not remove some of the water and waste after a major sandbed disturbance then some chemicals will spike in the tank. Nitrates and Phosphates being the prime suspects in terms of coral happiness.

(Note: An established and well skimmed system should be able to mitigate small spikes in these cases)

Hope this helps...

Agreed and good info

 

[louoner]

Now with water changes. If all levels are good. Do you just top off when needed or do a water change even if levels are good?

 

[ourcoralreef]

Consistent water changes are the key to keeping a nice and happy reef don't wait until the parameters change especially in a small tank (under 75g)

 

[aaron23]

In all of my setups ive never disturbed my DSB 4"+ but I've seen and read so many aquarium setups and proper maintenance procedures and with my new build coming up I'm doing a shallow 1.5" sand bed and will routinely vacuum it.