Question with sand bed/algae situation

[Apone]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post at Reefs.org!

I had a question about my potential sand bed upgrade and its effect on my algae situation.

I currently use a crushed coral substrate, which tends to collect detritus, which leads to microalge growing on top of the curshed coral. My phosphates are very high right now also, which I understand is from the detritus breaking down. I tested my source water and it is fine, so I have ruled out this as my problem.

My plan to correct this situation is to remove the crushed coral and repalce it with sand, which will be from Home Depot - the silica free play sand (Sotuhdown).

The idea here is that the detritus will not be able to settle in to the sand bed like it does in the crushed coral bed, the detritus will be filtered out easier and I will have anerobic areas that will help my denitrificaion process.

Does this make sense to everyone?

 

[taikonaut]

Welcome to RDO, and yes, it all makes sense.

However, mind if I ask what you used to test your source water? What type of water do you use, and what are the parameters?

You may want to replace the crushed coral gradually, instead of doing all in one shot....

 

[Apone]

I used a Red Sea Phos. test kit, which does fresh and salt tests.

I cannot remember the exact specifics of my test results because they are written down at home and I am at work, but the phosphate from my tap was the low end of the scale, while my tanks phosphate was very high.

To reaplace the CC, I was also going to keep it in the tank after changing using pantyhose filled with it, to help trasnfer some of the bacteria over to the new sand....

 

[Anonymous]

Keep in mind that the phosphate doesn't evaporate, so even low amounts in tap water will accumulate over time to reach high levels in your aquarium...