experiment-sandbed missing link?

[boxfishpooalot]

What I did in a small .5gallon container was put in about 1 teaspoon of sugar. The container had about 1/2" of ditritus on the bottom sucked out from my tank, and the rest filled with saltwater from the tank.

When I added the sugar the next moring the water was completely foggy! I suspect this is a bacterial bloom? The pods that were in there apear to not move anymore(dead?) and some worms are alive at the bottom. Although to my surprise, the ditritus is half gone!!??

I suspect that the dirt decomposed from the bacteria, and they uptook much of it in their bodys.

Also, there appears to be bubbles coming out from the bottom and sitting at the top of the container surface of water(denitrification?)

This experiment seems neat, but educational. Perhaps all that sand beds are lacking really is a carbon source, with appropriate skimming to remove the bacteria growth. I do not know.

I would like to hear everyones opinions on this.

Tia Box

 

[HotHotHot]

I think the advanced forum has several threads on this including using vodka. They discuss the carbon factor.

FWIW, using corn syrup did the same for my tank. The water got very cloudy and when it cleared I had 0 nitrates.

HTH
Ed

 

[boxfishpooalot]

Cool!Zero nitrates are awesome. What were they before?

Also, Im assuming your tank has a sand bed? Did you notice any bubbles from the sand?

 

[HotHotHot]

Well I'm ashamed to say they were "off the scale" at one point. :eek1:

After doing some water changes to get it down around 20, I tried the corn syrup trick.

Sand? yes about 3". I see bubbles occasionally.

Ed

Edited to say I treated the tank for 3-4 weeks. It's been about a year so I forget exactly.