What's up with my Sand?

[stlblufan]

Over the past month, my sand has turned from white to ... sort of brownish, even purplish in some areas, with a bunch of air pockets throughout (see pics). Is this normal or should I start stirring it up and siphoning stuff out?

I do weekly 25% water changes and my parameters are good (except phosphorous, which is at 0.1ppm--working on that).

It looks sort of like diatoms, but I should be well past that by now (~6mo). I also have a bunch of nerites and some chaeto in my sump. My lighting is an elite 100. Dinos?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Barnacle_Blenny]

What do you use for top off? Ever had a high phosphates in your tank?

 

[stlblufan]

Top off is RO/DI. To my knowledge, I've never had high phosphates, but my PO4 test kit (Elos) may have been bad as I never had a reading over 0.0. I have recently replaced it with a Hanna checker, which surprised me with a reading of 33ppb.

 

[JimmyR1rider]

Test kits rarely show phosphates at a low level, you need a hanna photometer to detect very low levels, or lab grade kits that we can not get.

Your using crushed coral for sand it looks like- has always been known as a nutrient trap.

Dont stir up your sand- youll disturb layers of bacteria that you shouldnt and get them waterborn.

If you look at a lot of peoples tanks, the sand gets discolored under the surface. Thats all the good bacterias that help with bio filtration.(as well as some not so good nutrients) and is why you dont want to disturb it too much)

 

[aznt1217]

Not sure if that's crushed coral... doesn't look big enough for it. It looks like that Arag Alive sand mixed in with some crush coral. I wouldn't worry about it too much... Algae Blooms like that can disappear relatively quickly after a water change. I keep my sand clean by getting fish that sleep in it. My Red Coris Wrasse and Yellow Watchman Goby keep it nice and white

 

[stlblufan]

Not sure if that's crushed coral... doesn't look big enough for it. It looks like that Arag Alive sand mixed in with some crush coral.

My sand is Tropic Eden Aragavive Reeflakes. No coral mixed in by me, but I think Reeflakes is a mix of coral and seashell fragments and whatnot.

Anyway, I guess I'll just keep changing the water and possibly pick up a goby! I was terrified that it was dinos.

Thanks guys.

 

[ecchybridLE]

Could be dinos, or cyano. I have been battling a similar problem. I have fairly large grain, might even have been the same media your using. I can't remember.

My problem is my sand bed feels rock hard when I touch it, anyone know if this is normal? I have about 2 - 2 1/2 inchs. I get bad cyno bloom and dinos.

I do weekly water changes using ro with tds meter. Any suggestions ? Should or can I add more sand on top? Or should I suck out the old sand first?


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[THEDLO]

Could be dinos, or cyano. I have been battling a similar problem. I have fairly large grain, might even have been the same media your using. I can't remember.

My problem is my sand bed feels rock hard when I touch it, anyone know if this is normal? I have about 2 - 2 1/2 inchs. I get bad cyno bloom and dinos.

I do weekly water changes using ro with tds meter. Any suggestions ? Should or can I add more sand on top? Or should I suck out the old sand first?


Sent from my iPhone using Reefs

are u using kalk?

 

[ecchybridLE]

Not using kalk. Could this be an issue? I'v just been dosing cal and alk for past year.


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[THEDLO]

possibly, u test for cal and alk since u dosing?

 

[ecchybridLE]

I test bi weekly. Sometimes weekly. Was steady with my dosing regament. Pretty much do a water change every week or week and a half. I just got my calcium reactor set up 3 days ago. Gotta get it dialed in over the next week or so.


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[THEDLO]

hm post a new thread asking y ur sand has gone concrete on u.

 

[JimmyR1rider]

Alright---Swing and a miss on my part- sorry bout some bad info.