Dare I post here... Help?.?.

[TimCA]

Let me preface this by saying this is a transplant post. And I am almost afraid to post it here. With that said please do not take this opportunity to blast the guy with the 1in sand bed. But I need some input.

Here goes...


Hello,
I need some input. I Have a 125 reef with MH lighting. It has been set up in one tank or another over 10 yrs. I have a life reef sump and 48" skimmer. About one year ago I broke down the tank for a day (saving the water) ard removed about a 4 - 6 in layer of crushed aragonite substrate. I did this because I thought that the sand sized aragonite was preferred and would help with my algae problem.... My algae problem is worse than ever! I am planning on removing all the substrate. Mind you I hate the look of a bare bottom tank! So this is a troubling thing.

I have tries emerald crabs, and lots of snails to no avail.
I change about 20 gal every two weeks.
I use RO/DI top off and a TDS meter too change the filters.
The sand is about 1in thick.
The pump for the skimmer is a MDX3 it should be a #4...
NO fish
5 corals
assorted polyps
1 clam
All inverts seem fine.

PO4 0
SG 1.025
Temp 80
Top of with Kalk
CA 280
Alk 8 ish
Any other suggestions other than pulling all the sand out???????
Tim

 

[romunov]

It is clear that the excess nutrients are accumulating somewhere. Rigorous nutrient expert (water changes, skimming, biomass export) and you should have this solved. Of course, things will take time, as good things always do.
See Adhesive: Sand bed questions - read here first! on how to set up a DSB to work as a biological filtration.
Dumping sand is about 1/2 the way, but you also need some animals in there to agitate the sand (read in the article why). And there may be some limitations to the stocking of organisms. You can search this forum for every one, but generally sand sifting stars, hermits, mandarins et al are not very desirable if you wish to keep the bed going. It also needs to be recharged with "detritivore" kits once in a while.
You can also do a search (this icon at the top:

) with strings like "hair algae problem".

 

[Al]

Romunov
Mandarin fish will not hurt the sand bed.

 

[rshimek]

Hi Tim,

Actually the problem is the thinness of the bed and the lack of life in it.

The bed doesn't function as a "biological filter" to any great degree, it is simply too thin to set up the conditions necessary for that work. Additionally, I doubt it has enough animal life living in it (again it is too thin for most of the animals to really establish themselves as stable populations).

This has resulted in the accumulation of nutrients in the system.

At this point, unfortunately, I don't think you have any choice other than to remove the bed and either go with some sort of bare bottom methodology or re-establish a sand bed as it should be set up (appropriate depth, sand grain particle size distribution, and array of animals).

 

[TimCA]

Do uoy think I acn re-use the sand? If so do I need to cleen it and how?

 

[DonJasper]

Do uoy think I acn re-use the sand?

This is the last advice Dr Ron gave to someone considering using crushed coral in fish tanks:

I see you live in Minneapolis. The best use I can suggest for such sand is to use it to give traction on your driveway when it is icy.

It aslo works good as a decorative layer on the top of flower pots or flower beds.

However, I certainly wouldn't use it to make a sand bed in a reef tank.

He might wish to alter his advice based on you living in Ca

If so do I need to cleen it and how?

Get as white a sand as you can find and use that. Left Coasters have a hard time finding Southdown sand. I know some Sand Lunatics who drove hundereds of miles east to get it! Maybe an LFS carries it for you?

The beaches full of sand to the west of us failed some sort of Sand Lunatic test. (?)

I went slightly north to a LHS (Local Hardware Store) and bought 'silica free play sand'. I wish it was whiter, but not enough to pay shipping on sand. I would've use the freebie stuff at the beach, but we never went to the ocean between the time I decided to start a new tank - to the time I actually did it.

 

[rshimek]

Hi,

Don's advice is well taken ([thanks]). Get some fresh sand. It really is not cost effective to clean it.

 

[TimCA]

Im sorry, I may have left that out, I REPLACED the larger argonite with sand about one year ago. So the one to 2 in I have is the proper sand grain size. And at $120 in sand I would love to reuse it if posable!
Thanks
Tim

 

[TimCA]

Also if I were to go for the "sand bed" stile of reef keeping would you suggest just adding another 3 in on top and going from there?

 

[romunov]

I bought calcite that is really cheap. I would suggest you start fresh to avoid any misfortunes in the future. Be sure to read the sticky thread (top of the previous page) on the sand bed...
I will enclose my list of related articles:
How sand beds really work
Adhesive: Sand bed questions - read here first!
Tank size for a dsb
And if you deside to go with SiO2 (silica) sand:
SILICA IN REEF AQUARIUMS by RANDY HOLMES-FARLEY, Ph.D.
SILICON ââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Â FOE OR FRIEND? BY CRAIG BINGMAN, Ph.D.

 

[DonJasper]

Also if I were to go for the "sand bed" stile of reef keeping would you suggest just adding another 3 in on top and going from there?

Humm. This is what I would do. Buy plenty of extra salt mix. Buy a big container. I'd like to get one the size of my tank, but as large as is practical. Mix up a fresh batch of saltwater.

Remove all the good sand (siphoning it out?) Toss the water and add new water if siphoning works, until it's out. Put a layer of the cheap stuff in a layer about 3" thick. Put back in the good stuff on top. There is no functional difference in sand. (I like the white color and would prefer a lighter colored sand bad then I've got - but it's not a $120 preference). Let things settle down for the day. The only feeding is target feeding the clam with DT's.

Ok this is likely to cause havoc with water chemistry - as things adjust to their new environment by dieing.

The purpose of the tank sized container is so that I could do a 50% water change in the morning (before work) - then another 50% in the evening. Making a new batch in the evening. Keep this up until the ammonia is Ok. (Knowing my luck all this preparation would be unnecessary, but I'd want to save what I could) In any case - ammonia or not - keep the water changes up at a lower pace (say 30% in the evenings) for about a week or so (?). This will do a good job of removing nutrients, and take care of any other chemistry problems that may have built up over time.

I'd get rid of anything with claws (maybe LFS store credit). I'd spend a couple of bucks and get some sand wormy things from Billsreef.com, ispf.com etc. Hey if I just spent $120 for sand that is white - I'd spend something like a same amount for sand that is useful.

The tank will begin to feed on itself. Let it, only spot feeding the clam, until the algae has died back to my personal taste. (The moral judgments of which living thing is 'good' and which living thing is 'undesirable' is a personal one). Water changes up to 50% once a week, and removing algae from display tank by hand, until this happens. I'd stock my sump with macro algae.

Any trouble along the way? More water changes until things are happy again.

Now start low level feeding the tank once a day. See how it goes for like a month. What you're really feeding is the little critters in the sand. Bump it up a notch. Try adding more 'stuff' to compete for the nutrients - corals, Xenia etc And so on and so forth. Once your glass is crawling with little bugs (and has a thin sheen of algae that's kept short by snails and the little bugs) - start with fish.

- - - - -

You could avoid the twice daily water changes by adding sand on top about 1 cm per week (?) or so until it's of the proper thickness. But I described what I would do, and I'd want the white stuff on top. The daily water changes etc would remain the same.

 

[rshimek]

Hi Tim,

Don's method will work.

An alternative method if you really want to save the present sand, and reuse it. This presumes there is nothing of value in the sand:

• Remove the sand from the tank, siphon or scoop it out, but get it out.
• Set up some temporary filtration on your tank.
• Put the sand in a large bucket or vat.
• Make sure you can stir the sand (i. e. don't pack the bucket too full).
• Use a broom stick or thick dowel to stir it.
• Wear old clothes.
• Fill the bucket over the top of the sand with bleach water. The stronger the bleach water, the faster it will clean the sand.
• Stir it well- really mix it up.
• Let it sit for two or three hours, stirring well every half hour or so.
• Pour off the bleach water.
• Rinse well (I would use a garden hose and simply stick the hose down to the bottom of the bucket, turn the water on and rinse the sand by letting the water run through it with stirring for 15 or 20 minutes or until you can't smell any bleach.)
• Let the sand dry.

Repeat this for all of the sand. When you are done you can treat this sand as brand new "dry sand," and set up the sand bed to specifications.

The bleach water will dissolve away any organics in the sediment and the thorough rinsing will remove all traces of the organics and the chlorine leaving you with good clean sand.

 

[DonJasper]

The bleach water will dissolve away any organics in the sediment and the thorough rinsing will remove all traces of the organics and the chlorine leaving you with good clean sand.

Right, minimal die off in the tank. Where's the Doh!!!! smiley?

 

[Karan]

Questions

Questions

Hi there, I have a couple of questions. First of all, a short description on my tank. It is 5ft in length, 2ft in width and 3ft height. It will be used mainly as a Seahorse tank.

It is roughly 680 litres or 150 gals.

I would love to introduce a Deep Sand Bed for this setup but require some assistance and it is quite new and unheard of in Singapore. I have done quite abit of reseach online.

I am interested in a 6" Deep Sand Bed.

Some question regarding the sand :

From my research (but please correct me if i am wrong)

60% Very Fine ( <0.5mm )
30% Fine (~0.5mm)
10% Course (~2mm)

Are those sizes accurate ?

Do you recommend this sand for DSB?http://www.naturesocean.com/live_sand.htm
Its quite expensive in Singapore though, it costs around $48.80 SGD.

If those 3 sizes are correct above, how do you recommend they be put in the tank? in any specific order/layer or just mix them up randomly and lay them in.

That is for the sand, now for creatures living in the sand.
Since its a new setup without any Livestock, should i manually add Bristile Worms, Conches, Cukes, Scarlet Crabs, Nassarius Snails and Brittle Stars to that the process for the Deep Sand Bed ?

After the Deep Sand Bed has run for over 2 months, would it be alright to add either gobies or Skunk Cleaner Shrimp "Lysmata amboinensis" ?

What would you recommend against adding once it's 2 months old?


Thats all i can think off at the current moment, i really do appreciate any answers. Thank you so much in advance.

Best Regards,
Karan