Hard sand

[Juice780]

I was doing a water change today and siphoning the sand and notice the sand a little ways down was hard. Almost like a hard crunchy layer under the top part. Anyone know why and is this a bad thing.

 

[bsr2430]

I would almost bet my paycheck that it’s bad... might be from a build up in waste.

 

[Juice780]

It’s only been up and running a little over 4 months and I have a very light bio load

 

[bsr2430]

How deep is this sand bed?

 

[bsr2430]

Here you go. Someone else had this issue:

Sand bed turning rock hard

I moved a couple of rocks around and noticed the sand bed was stuck to the rock and was rock hard! Also when I changed my carbon in my rector is was rock hard too! What could be causing this?

www.reef2reef.com

 

[jda]

It is not a big deal. It is either from precipitated calcium carbonate, or sometimes from very low pH. In any case, if you can keep your carbonate, calcium and magnesium near NSW levels, you should be OK. I don't test or chase pH and I have not had this happen since I stopped limewater and started on CaRx.

 

[Juice780]

I use kalkwasser in my ato. My ph seems to stay right at 8.4. Will it hurt anything if I break it up.