nasty brown stuff in my sand

[tripleup05]

Last night I adjusted a powerhead to hit the front of the glass, and apparantly overnight and while i was at school today the current flowing down the front of the glass pused the sand around alot. Well i went to push it back up against the front of the glass, and when i did, this nasy milky brown junk came from the sand. I've seen it before when the sand got stirred around but never really thought about it til now. Is this normal, or do i have too much waste in my tank or something like that. Any help would be great! Thanks!

 

[Tackett]

when is the last time you have suctioned the sludge buildup off the bottom of your tank?

sounds to me like a long long time.

 

[romunov]

It is common for tanks with low/no maintenance schedule to produce this "sludge". If you're not running a DSB (if you are, the sandbed should have no or little "sludge") you can leave it alone, but restock with good live sand, with plenty of worms (some places sell it online, but not as good as a nice, rich lagoon sand). If you don't care about those animals and run another form of filtration, you can just vacuum it out.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

www.inlandaquatics.com sells lots of sandbed critters.