Help with sand maintenance!

[DJasak]

Hey guys,
I have about a 2" deep sand bed and I keep having issues with keeping it clean. I have about 6 or7 nassarius snails, 2 turbo snails, 2 astrea snails, 1 nerite, and various Hermit crabs but I still seem to be getting a brown film that develops on the surface of the sand after about a week. I was using a siphon but the priming bulb was constantly getting plugged with sand which then stops the siphon and it was driving me insane. Then I picked up a Eheim gravel vacuum but all it does is blow all the fine "dust" all over the tank and makes my water cloudy. (Any bigger pieces of detritus it will collect along with some sand, but that's it.) Please help it's driving me insane. I was interested in a sand sifting goby but I was told they do more harm than good because they wipe out the good stuff and the bad, and they don't seem to stay healthy for very long, and again they cloud your water. Read the same thing about a sand sifting starfish. Now I'm interested in some fighting conch snails. I have a hang in back refugium and skimmer but both are still breaking in, only had them for a week so far. Also run gfo and carbon. Please help! What do you guys use to clean your sand?

 

[Volcmreefer]

How long has your tank been up and running? Testing the water? Are you using tap water?

 

[Volcmreefer]

Post pics or pm me and you can send me a pic via text.

 

[DJasak]

Was using distilled water, now using ro/di. Tank has been up and running for a little over a year. Haven't tested water lately I'll do that in the AM and post results and all I have for testing water is API. 45 gallon tank

 

[Entacmaea]

Hey Djasak, you might try thinking about things a little differently - in that what is collecting on your sand most likely has little to do with your sand or physically keeping it clean in some way. Brown film sounds like either dinoflagellates, cyanobacteria, or diatoms - all of which has something to do with water quality and extra nutrients, and possibly some other side causes. Sharing some other tank parameters and details about water flow, as Volcmreefer has asked, would help in diagnosis. If you have only had a skimmer on for a week, sounds like it is a new tank and this might just be part of some of the growing pains a new tank goes through as it adjusts. And/or, your system nutrient imports (feeding, bioload, water, etc.) might be out of balance with exports (skimmer, water changes, other filters and media, etc.).

 

[DJasak]

Thank you, tank has been running for over a year but for that year I wasn't using a skimmer, just a hang on back power filter and regular water changes. For water I was using distilled for a while but switched to rodi. I do feed kinda heavy, I use 2 aqueon circulation pumps for flow. I'll be posting test results today

 

[username in use]

What's the stocking list that you "feed heavy"?

 

[DJasak]

Blue jaw trigger, foxface, melanarus wrasse, yellow wrasse, ocellaris clown, firefish.