sand algae

[Travis1787]

I am a sand lover in my tanks .... seems diatoms/brownish/reddish algae in the sand bed is unavoidable. I always battled it in my old setup and now in my new 210 I fully expected it in a new tank going through some mini cycles with new rock and sand and stuff.

I help maintain a friends huge tank ...500 gallons and its always a big issue in his tank as well. I have always used reactors with phosphate remover, biopellets, always have good Skimmers going. RO filters maintain regular with new sediment, carbon and di resin. Cutting back on the lighting helped in my new setup but my new setup isn't really my concern since its new and going there the motions.

Sand sifters always work for me mainly with gobies usually being the best but I find the sand sifting gobies never last more then 3 months at most and then they are M.I.A. but that's not fixing the oroblem, just hiding it.

My question is how many others deal with this and what have you found to fix it?

You can stir the sand bed but its crazy how fast it comes right back. I have had this issue with MH, T5, and leds.

 

[snake1]

Maybe get better flow down by the sand bed it had always helped me

 

[Fragaddiction]

What type of sand did you use? I used crushed aragonite & caribisand when I started my tank. I had a small diatom cycle then have never had it since then. If I recall correctly it's the silicate in sand that cause diatom issues.

 

[Travis1787]

Its sand from faois I'm sure its reef safe ill check the brand

 

[Snookster]

I just started seeing an outbreak of the same thing. Finally got my hair algae under control, guess the PO4 had to go somewhere. I tested my RO, it was coming out at 1 TDS, turns out my resin was reaching it's end. I'm going to increase my lighting an hour or two (noticed it's growing in areas of lower light) and do small water changes while sucking it out a couple times a week and see where that gets me. I'm also going to get some chaeto back into the system to compete with it.

 

[nathan1986]

My tank has gone 2 years with completely clean sand, when i reciently had all my euphyllia die off i now have diatoms everywhere. I also keep my ro/di unit up to date on filters/resin and change the tank filter daily. Popped up out of no where

 

[risin]

I had the same issues until I starting using cucumbers. I have had one I my tank for years and haven't had dirty sand since. One cucumber keeps the sand in my 250dd nice and clean.

If you're having hair algae in the sand, there is obviously a nutrient issue. In the past I had found that messing with the sand bed just makes it worse.

 

[Safir]

I'm my old tank I had a cucumber and it kept my send clean.
I'm my 125 they die after a week or so and I am unable to explain it.. Maybe my send is too coarse for them? In any case I do not have any film type algae but my sand looks "dirty"

 

[Travis1787]

Yea mine is not hair or slim it just looks like the sand is turning brownish in some areas

 

[Bogue Chitto]

The silicate in the sand is causing the algae to grow. The more you stir the sand the longer it will take to get rid of it.

 

[Travis1787]

Reef safe sand doesn't have silicate tho does it? Pretty sure play sand from like home depot does but not reef safe sand

 

[Travis1787]

The brand I used caribsea aragonite aragamax select says silica free

 

[risin]

The brand I used caribsea aragonite aragamax select says silica free

Pretty sure that's the same sand I used in my build. Didn't have any algae issues beyond the initial cycle.

Rinsing that sand was a pain. Took many gallons of water to get it mildly clean.

 

[Travis1787]

Yes rinsing it really sucked lol

 

[Bogue Chitto]

Well I bought reef sand and it had silicates in it. Caribsea made it also. It says no or low silicates but that's just a selling feature. At least that's the experience I have had with it.

 

[Bootes123]

Mine just started turning brown after I aquascaped. I think that stirring up the sand bed caused it. Thoughts? My sand is also Caribsea. I've never had a problem until now....

 

[oblio]

I could go on about this subject for 2k words. I wish I had an answer for you sir. I have been trying to understand this in my tank for over a year now. I run GFO, biopellets, big skimmer change out bag daily, new filters every 3 months and this stuff just persists. Ive tried letting it really get a good mat along the sand bed and then then vacuum it up. I know people say nutrients, but reducing food seems to have absolutely no effect. Ive tried stirring the sand bed daily, every 2 days, no change. I run a mp40 on one side and a mp10 on the other on a 90 gallon, not sure how much more flow the tank can take without the thing looking like a dust storm.This stuff is resilient to say the least.
Over the last 2 months for some reason its really started to bother me, to the point where I don't want to look at the tank because it has this red crap on the sandbed. This past weekend I tried a treatment of Chemi-clean. I vacuumed out as much as I could, blew it off the rocks, let all that go to the bag, took the top off the skimmer drapped a bag over the hole so it didn't make a mess under the sump turned off the biopellet reactor and the gfo reactor and the uv. i also only did a 3/4 dose instead of exactly what the box said. To say the least I'm frightened to death of dosing anything other than calc/alk in the tank. I waited the recommended 48 hours and did a 20% water change as outlined by the products instructions. Turned all the peripherals back on and will wait and see what happens. During the treatment the tanks inhabitants seemed completely oblivious including all the corals. So fingers crossed. I will say that all the red stuff seems to be gone, cant find a trace anywhere. I absolutely hate, basically refuse to dose stuff, but honestly im at wits end with this stuff, short of turning the lights off and starving the fish, and to be honest I don't even think that would work.
I dont have any degree in anything but from reading around the wonderful interwebs I concocted a theory of whats happening, and if Im even a little correct i believe this treatment might have some good long term effects. I believe that we all have tons of different bacteria in our tanks, now this bacteria finds some sort of balance within the tank, and we deal with the effects of this on a daily basis, cleaning glass, the lovely brown gooo in the skimmers, but for whatever reason this specific bacteria (the red sand bed crap bactiera) has outnumbered the other bacteria in the tank and is now choking out the other, and slowly but surely gaining strength. My hope was that by basically resetting the tank, by killing bacteria (good and bad, im assuming the chemi-clean dosnt know the difference) that the beneficial bacteria will have a chance to compete and this mythical equilibrium will somehow find its way in my tank.
Again, i have no education that allows me to make these claims, its just a hunch from putting together bits and pieces of dozens of other posts by people I am sure are far smarter than I.
Ill let you know how the next few weeks progress, I sure hope I didnt make a mistake but as stated this tank was coming down one way or another because I am just exhausted looking at this red wispy garbage on my nice white sandbed.

 

[oldsaint]

Sand bed under 3-4", Stir, Stir and then stir some more. Change any mechanical filter, ie filter socks, filter pads everyday or twice a day at best, reduce feeding, run GFO, GAC, water changes with quality water, quality skimmer run a little wet, give it time.

If you've never stirred your SB I wouldn't stir the whole thing at once.