sand bed crash

[Patio]

sand bed finally pooped out. Everything is ok and happy, I just have a bare bottom now with lots of hair algae everywhere. So what's the best way to get rid of the algae? It's my 30g soft/lps so no fox face or anything like that to remedy the problem.

I have been doing 5g water changes every other day and I am not winning the battle. Also cut lights in half.

 

[marw99]

Try large mexican turbo snails

 

[laurentb]

Check your phosphate level, cut down on fish food, clean your Skimmer completely every other day, light no more than 7 hours/day and use turbo snails. to win the battle you shoud also remove it with your hand.

 

[sfsuphysics]

How much water did you change out when your sand bed "Crashed"? ?? If anything I'd pick out as much algae as you can by hand, then do a series of massive water changes (50% + range) with a 30 gallon tank that shouldn't be that difficult. This will reduce whatever nitrates and phosphates you might have. Then see if you still have the problem. Algae is a PITA to get rid of once you have it, so you'll probably need some other algae eater which to be perfectly honest is never a sure fire thing, people can say blennys or turbos but that won't always work.

 

[laurentb]

water change is a good but temporary solution. if you don't correct what you do wrong, it will come back later on. you should know the cause. then treat it. (over fead, nitrate, phosphate..ect)

 

[Qwiv]

How old is our tank? How do you know it was the sand bed? How deep?

 

[Patio]

Its been running two years no changes in livestock and a short sand bed.

 

[Kinetic]

more flow (they can't hold on that well), phosphate absorbing media in some kind of reactor, good amount of water changes, get a turkey baster and blow detritus and junk out of the rock little by little. eventually everything will clean up.

perhaps you had a few dead snails or something recently foul up the tank a tad =/

also changing from a short sand bed to a barebottom may have released some nasties trapped in the sand which would trigger hair algae blooms.

 

[GreshamH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7849909#post7849909 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kinetic
more flow (they can't hold on that well), phosphate absorbing media in some kind of reactor, good amount of water changes, get a turkey baster and blow detritus and junk out of the rock little by little. eventually everything will clean up.

perhaps you had a few dead snails or something recently foul up the tank a tad =/

also changing from a short sand bed to a barebottom may have released some nasties trapped in the sand which would trigger hair algae blooms.

What can't "hold on", hair algae? Hope that's not what you ment cuz it's not true one bit. Hair algae loves flow, thrives in flow, and doesn't care if you blast the heck out of it. THe flow will help lower the disolved co2, which will help a tad, but not a lot in the long run.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Another thing is since the tank had a 2 year old sand bed, perhaps a lot of gunk is still in your life rocks. Easy way to to test is grab a piece out of the tank and dunk it in a bucket of salt water and swish it around to see if anything falls off, or if that's not practical get a turkey baster and start blasting all the crevases of your rock, my guess is there might but crap in there as well.

 

[Kinetic]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7850304#post7850304 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GreshamH
What can't "hold on", hair algae? Hope that's not what you ment cuz it's not true one bit. Hair algae loves flow, thrives in flow, and doesn't care if you blast the heck out of it. THe flow will help lower the disolved co2, which will help a tad, but not a lot in the long run.

ah you're right, i think i was thinking about red slime and how it can't hold onto the sand bed with high flow... which doesn't help at all in this case (no sand, not red slime) hehe oops!