Sand blown to hell and back

[boobookitty]

Ok, setting up a new 400G reef after an absence of 4 years, and using new equipment. In particular I'm using a pair of wav's hanging on the back of the tank. They're as high up as I can get them without having them constantly making noise with the water.

I have about an inch of sand in the tank, and I cannot under any circumstances keep the Wavs from blowing a huge chunk of the sand out, down to the bare bottom of the tank.

I don't remember having this issue with my last tank (240G), but I used different pumps. How do people deal with this (aside from the a buoys "don't have sand")? Tips on keeping this from happening?

 

[cloak]

If you can't position the pumps where this won't happen, going with a larger grain size or replacing the pumps with something else might be the only option.

 

[btb72]

What kind of sand do you use?

 

[boobookitty]

Caribsea Fiji pink. Is there a type of sand that would "sit" better?

 

[Bogue Chitto]

You need smaller pumps.

 

[boobookitty]

It's a 400G tank. No one with Wav's can keep sand? I have a hard time believing that.

 

[btb72]

Special grade is a bigger grain according to most on the sps forum

 

[Bent]

I'm having the same issue even with special grade. I don't know how some people can keep enough flow to keep the crap up off the sand bed without blowing it all over the place.

I have my pumps on each end both pointing up as far as I can stand the water noise and it still blows the middle.

I've learned to live with it at this point. If it wasn't for my engineer needing it, I would just siphon it all out.

 

[boobookitty]

Update: the Caribsea Special Grade worked perfectly on one of the two patches; the second one is better but still has a couple bare spots. I'll play with the pumps for that one since it's close.

So the Special Grade made a difference and it integrates ok with the Fiji I already had.

 

[yellowRubi]

How did you add the sand ? Iam having the same problem in my tank, my MP40's are dialed down to 60% and iam still getting empty spots, was thinking about adding bigger grain in those spots too

 

[boobookitty]

Did it a cup at a time...fill a cup, slowly submerge it to avoid cloudiness, then empty it just above the spot. Still had a little cloudiness, but it worked pretty well.

 

[organism]

How long has the tank been running? Sand take a while to get colonized by bacteria and gets substantially heavier and harder to move once it does, not uncommon to see it blowing around a bit in tanks less than a month old.

 

[BrianKC]

One tip on adding sand...get a large-diameter (1" or more) length of PVC about 6"-12" longer than the depth of the tank. Put the pipe in the tank and aim it where you want the sand. Put the sand in a pitcher and pour it into the pipe. Special sand delivery right where you want it.

 

[boobookitty]

organism: Yeah, waiting for the bacterail hardening to kick in. But in the meantime...

BrianKC: Nice idea on the sand delivery...I'll have to try that...

 

[chimmike]

doesn't that Fiji pink always end up with endless diatom blooms? I think there was a thread here about it.

I used oolitic grain and never had problems.

 

[Saltwaterw]

I thought the oolite is even a smaller grain size than the Fiji..
Fiji is usually listed as the next size up with the oolite being the smallest.

I used the oolite and it looks very nice but does tend to have shallow areas dug out over a few days time. I've been carefully moving it back in hoping it eventually stabilizes as I'm only 6 weeks in and the tank is very clean with no livestock.

I may consider mixing in some heavier grain if this continues as I've only got the canister outlet and one small powerhead going with 2 more planned eventually in a tall 50gal Hex.