trueblackpercula
New member
Hey Bill the fish room looks amazing simce I seen it last, Can you post a few pictures of the acroporas under the new lighting?
Michael
Michael
Initial planning stages for tank and fish room
- Thread starter Bilk
- Start date
dave.m
Active member
No, not at all. That would require the sand particles to be as fine as silt in order to compress to the point that water would be excluded from the substrate. The particles are ideally at least 1-2 mm in the finer grades, 5-6 mm in the heavier grades. This leaves tons of room for water and bacteria to circulate between the particles. As well, a healthy substrate will be full of detrivorous worms and snails who constantly stir the substrate for you 24/7 so that the sandbed is always breathing, always playing an active role in your tank's water filtration.trueblackpercula said:
Dave.M
Bilk
New member
Well I did exactly what you suggested. Put a thin layer of Caribsea Seafloor down today. Seems to be doing pretty well. The Tunze are running at 60% now with no sand blowing around
Did a little reorg too.
I put down rubber tile in the fish room. Much easier on the knees when performing maintenance below the tank
Now to the nitty gitty with the tank. I'm really starting to hate the fine substrate. I cannot manage to keep enough flow and not have the sand shifting and blowing all over the place. Others seem to be able to manage this somehow, but this just isn't working for me. It's becoming an issue as the fine sand blows and then accumulates around the base of corals. So I will be removing it.
Now the issues I have in doing so are the structure and how much this will disrupt the biology of the system. The structure is basically large, independent rocks which I'm not entirely happy with at this point. Any suggestions on how to approach this? I may be able to have someone hold all of my livestock if that's determined to be necessary. However if anyone has gone thru this, I'd like to hear about it and anything they encountered that they feel is worth mentioning.
Another item to mention is PO4 has basically dropped off of the charts. Is this due to the aragonite substrate coupled with the use of kalkwasser? NO3 has remained a rock solid 4ppm. Really no rise or fall in that number.
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I had this issue also and looking at your pics, my rocks were the same as yours covered in the fine sand. I took out 1/3 of my sand during each water change using a 3/4" ID hose. Replaced it with tropic eden reef flakes. Couldn't be happier and chemistry stayed in line. No more sand storms and the power heads are cranked up to 80%. Two tunzes 6105 and a MP60
I left the sand alone where the rocks were and simply added a little more new sand around the base of the rock work.
Bilk
New member
Wow, that looks so good.
Thanks. It's been a bumpy ride, but it seems that's the norm for us mortal reefkeepers.
I haven't seen any adverse effects yet and don't anticipate any. I am also going to add some larger grain as the seafloor grade is good, but I think a little more of something larger will fully do the trick and enable me to push the 6105 a bit higher.
Thanks. It's been a bumpy ride, but it seems that's the norm for us mortal reefkeepers.
I haven't seen any adverse effects yet and don't anticipate any. I am also going to add some larger grain as the seafloor grade is good, but I think a little more of something larger will fully do the trick and enable me to push the 6105 a bit higher.
Sounds good, don't go with too large a grain. Coralline will start to grow on it. Good or bad is really up to you. To me I wouldn't like it lol.
