Has your sand ever clumped up?

[Quiet_Ivy]

Has the sandbed in your tank ever formed into little clumps like catlitter? This has been mentioned a couple of times in a dinoflagellates thread and I wonder if it's related to dinos or not. Also please mention whether the clumpiness was related to anything going on like starting kalk, dosing bacteria, etc. and whether it went away on its own.

thanks!
ivy (yes, I've read Doc Shimek's explanation of the lumps)

 

[ReefTron5000]

A used to have a 50 Galllon Cadlights cube that ran for a little more than a year and a half. If I recall, about 6 or so months in I started dosing BRS Alkalinity and Calcium. As far as I can tell, i followed the instructions perfectly when mixing.

A few months later, I started noticing that the sand started clumping up. Clumps here and there. Eventually, whole portions stated locking up and the surface got hard. I could break it up but it was a bit of a pain and didn't really return to a nice granular form.

I always assumed it had to do with the BRS stuff I was dosing. I ran my calcium a little high but nothing crazy. My numbers were never through the roof or anything. For the most part, the tank itself looked great even while the sand was clumping up.

Forgot to mention I had a pretty large sand bed.

 

[toothybugs]

I sucked my sand out over the last few months and have noticed in some of the lower flow areas I'd get chunks. Sometimes the size of a shooter marble, other times like a 1/2" thick credit card. I noticed it was always with larger grained sand for some reason. My fine stuff never did it.

 

[BlackTip]

My sand clumped up in places. I think it was because I was dosing two parts manually only once a day. I believe most of what I dosed precipitated. Using a doser now, I dose 12 times a day. I haven't seen any clumps since.

 

[outy]

After 25 years of sand beds and tank rebuilds, everyone has clumped to some degree.


Its not dinos, its not how you dose. Its my guess its quite natural in a closed system.


Its sort of why 5 years is roughly all I get out of a sandbed before its needs to be addressed.

 

[MelloW33]

Sounds like precipitation from dosing

 

[Quiet_Ivy]

Interesting replies everyone-thanks. In my tank records I note it was worst when I had only corals, no fish, and wasn't dosing anything-weekly water changes kept up fine. It's come and gone since but I've never really not had dinos.

@ReefTron5000 nice dsb!
@outy Did you get more clumping as the bed aged, or is the reset just due to nutrient buildup? My tank's in its first year but I've had one heck of a time

Guess dinos can't be blamed for *everything*
Ivy