Tannish looking dust in the sand bed

[ReeferItIs2]

So I'm starting to see more of this tannish dust in my black sanded than usual...does anyone know what it is and what is causing this and is it bad?? All help is appreciated thank you and happy holidays!!!

 

[Dapg8gt]

Could be from your live rock. I know when I was cooking my live rock it kinda shed layers of brown silt. I took it out of an established tank so it wasnt the typical cooking of rock fwiw. but I did notice a thick layer of material that came out of the rock on the bottom of the brute even after i scrubbed it. Seemed even after 5 months and perfect water quality it was still shedding . I read somewhere that its thought to be the bacterial mulm shedding layers,one guy expressed it as the bacteria taking a crap lol.

 

[ReeferItIs2]

I think you are right cause its all by the rock and it does look like saw dust like my rocks are shedding...so it's OK to leave in there in between water changes??

 

[Dapg8gt]

If it's easy to remove it I would myself. Especially since you can see it.. I wouldn't worry about getting every last bit but removing detritus now leads to lower nutrients later. Eventually it will all make it down into the sand bed and either be used by the bacteria or build up and cause nitrates. I'm not sure on that one..

Fwiw I vacuum half of my sand monthly

 

[ReeferItIs2]

I vacuum half of the top of the sand bed every 2 weeks but there are some areas of the tank where the rock work won't let me fully get to the sand bed...doing a water change tomorrow I'll see how much i can get out...but if it creates nitrates my zoas will love it right? My tank hasn't had nitrates since it first cycled

 

[Dapg8gt]

The word on the street is zoas like dirty water. Well don't tell that to the ones in my tank lol. I have pretty low nutrients and my zoas do awesome. It's really up to you and where you feel comfortable keeping your levels at learning along the way what it takes to keep it at the levels your tank does best with. But letting things get out of hand is easy to do but not to easy to fix if that make sense.

If you are zoa dominant I don't think you really need to chase nitrates and probably can run higher. But usually along with nitrates comes phosphate that turns into algae. And if you plan to run sps later down the line if you let your levels get too out of whack you may have issues keeping the color where you want it.

Zoas can be forgiving all around but can also be a pain in the arse when you think everything is all good and go buy that expensive one and it melts lol..

Just watch your levels and set up your maintenance schedule around what keeps them in the range your shooting for is my method.

 

[ReeferItIs2]

I do a water change every couple weeks give or take a day or 2 I only do like 3 gallons since it's only a 20 gallon and I don't put too much food in there and I'm always emptying my skimmer thing lol...my tank is a mixed reef bunch of kryptonite and blue candy canes a hammer a Cyphastrea 3 chalices that are doing great but 1 is just a slow grower about 10 or so different zoas 7 different sps which the 2 of my montis are all white now the 2 acros are kinda dull but still alive a pon apes birds nest that looks ugly and barely living a tyree setosa that's doing OK and a Garf Bonsai that's growing and healthy...lps seems to do extremely well in my tank out of everything...

 

[lokii_37]

Blue candy cane? That's sounds really cool. If like to see a pic of that is you have one.

 

[ReeferItIs2]

No problem I will upload one this evening when I get home...it's not as bright as the kryptonite but kind of like a sky blue