Green/Grey Clumpy Crushed Coral

[FishFace28]

I hate to tell you, but I've got sand substrate, and I've got a similar situation on my hands. My sand is clumpy and brown/green icky. I've had this problem before, and a diamond goby is always my solution. My problem is that my tank isn't big enough to support a goby all the time. So, they clean me up, but eventually they get skinny. I don't know if you can have a diamond goby in cc or not. Does anyone know?

 

[Shino74]

The thing I cannot understand is why my corals and fish seem so untroubled by this?
in fact my corals are thriving, its just the unsightly mess on the cc.

 

[ahullsb]

I think you you could add quite a bit more rock for added filtration. It seems that your flow is good enough, so I'm guessing you have a very high nutrient load or something? I do think sand would give you far less problems. A phospate reactor, might help a little. A refugium is something that many people are using as well. If you haven't been testing your alkalinity, it would explain the rocks turning white. The coraline will come back if you keep ca, mg, and alk within acceptable ranges.

 

[Jocephus]

I would add some hermits to stir the sand bed/CC. You can't effectively use nassarius snails due to the size of the crushed coral.

Also, do you have an urchin?

 

[Shino74]

Thanks again to all that have given me some advice, No there is no urchin in here!

 

[FishFace28]

What does an urchin have to do with things?

 

[Jocephus]

When my urchin travels through my tank, it leaves a clean cut path through the corraline that looks very similar. Just checking to be sure that wasn't the case. I think you need some CUC.

 

[Shino74]

Just got my KH / Alk test and it reads 5.4dKH or 1.94Alk.
So is this the reason by coraline is bleaching?

 

[Shino74]

Bump!

 

[ljosh]

That is a low reading. I would get it up to at least 8-9dkh.

I am not sure if that reading would cause your coralline to bleach but it can't be helping. The level is not actually much below NSW levels.

 

[Shino74]

Thanks for the reply Josh. Well I carried out a 25% water change yesterday and off to buy some more live rock today to see if that helps. Will monitor my kDH over the next couple of days and dose if necessary.
If its not that any other ideas on what could be causing my LR to bleach?

 

[FishFace28]

Shino,

I'm sure this will start a major controversy because there are widely differing views on this, but I talked to my lfs about my icky sand. They had me buy an aquarium vacuum. My sand bed is only about 2 inches deep, so this should be fine. It was really easy to use, and initially it seems to have worked great.