Shallow sand bed woes

[Alex T.]

When I first started my tank I initially set it up as a barebottom SPS system. After a year I added some sand for aesthetics and it's been one algae outbreak after another.

My tank is only 18" wide and 27" high so it's next to impossible to vacuum around the rock structure without making SPS frags every week. After spending a week in the Dominican Republic over the Thanksgiving holiday I noticed their sand went through my hands with no odor or detritus buildup whatsoever. When I finally vacuumed my sand a few days ago it was almost all detritus buildup and mulm.

How do those of you with shallow sand beds and narrow tanks vacuum your sand to keep the problems from happening? Should I just go back to barebottom?

 

[Mock]

I dont... I have about 100 narsarius snails, four sand sifting starfish and about 250 dwarf or ceriths that keep it clean, along with a giant brittle star that will eat any large particulates...

 

[Alex T.]

I have at least as many snails as you but no starfish. I may siphon everything out and go back to when things made sense. I love sand for aesthetics, but in a narrow footprint it's just tough.

 

[reefinder]

You just need cleaners a couple sea cucumbers and fighting conch will do the trick

 

[Mock]

I didnt mention I had about 5 conchs either...

 

[MammothReefer]

i have like 10 snails i my whole tank. I don't really do anything with my shallow sand bed.. it just kinda gets blown around by the flow in the front half of my tank, or when I baste the tank for detrious/aefw. The sand in the back of the tank doesn't move much.. I wish I hadn't put it in but it isn't causing me any issues either outside of kicking up on some corals now and then.. I do like the look of it sometimes but I would prefer to just have corals growing over the bottom then sand.

 

[Alex T.]

Any thoughts on whether a sea star (brittle/fancy) would help stir up the sand a bit more and help clean it?

 

[Alex T.]

Well, this is almost embarrassing to admit, but I never had a TDS meter on my RODI system. I ordered a handheld model from my online retailer. TDS readings were as follows:

Input tap water: 68 ppm TDS
Output from RO membrane: 27 ppm TDS (that's only 60% rejection rate)
Output from DI resin: 2 ppm

Even though tap water is not that bad, the RO membrane I would say was shot.

I replaced the prefilters, RO membrane and DI today.

Water exiting the RO membrane pre-DI was 000...(100% rejection)

I hope this solves my problem with the algae that I've been having.

 

[allsps40]

My SSB stays fairly clean but not as clean as I would like. I have about 10 hemits, 1 fighting conch, 1 lonely and very old narsarius snail he is like 4 years old. I need to add more sand cleaners like narsarius snails and a goby. I also vac the sand every other water change.

 

[stevedola]

Just make sure that the replacement filters/membrane are of excellect quality. I like spectrapure and in my opinion they are worth the money. Others can allow silicates and other contaminants.

 

[Alex T.]

All pre-filters are Spectra Pure. The RO membrane is a DOW 60 gpd TFC and the DI resin is a Kent Hi-S dual resin. I hope this helps take care of the problem. Some SPS got the point where they were being suffocated with some of the algae patches and showed less polyp extension and stress. GFO wasn't working fast enough so I resorted to Algaefix Marine. I'm on my 3rd dose and the algae is starting to turn brown and recede. Nightly polyp extension is also much better than it was a few weeks ago. Hopefully I'm on the right path.

 

[Allmost]

I vaccum the sand bed weekly with water change ...
1sand sifting star, 3 queen counch ... 6x2 foot print.

I also have very high flow over the sand bed, just short of making a sand storm.

at the middle of the week, I move the sand around to fill up any holes or ...

keeps it crystal clear, like day 1

 

[RRaider]

I just throw a filter sock on the return every once in a while and stir up the sand bed.