How do you all deal with sand shifting.

[Dilan Patel]

The one thing I love to see in tanks is sand...which is why I put some in my tanks. One problem I am constantly doing is blowing off corals because sand keeps being kicked up from my gyres's. So my question is how do yu all deal with sand moving around the tank and settling on corals and creating bare spots and creating mounds of sand piles. Do you just let it be? Shoot the corals every day or something like that? Remove the excess sand? What are your Ideas for me? this is a 55gallon tank wwith one gyre xf250. The sand blowing around problem occurs on the side of the powerhead. Like right underneath it nothing bad happends on the far side which is good.

 

[ciscomania]

xf250 is way too strong for 55 g tank. I have a 55g tank and i have 230 gyre and it's only turned up to max 20-30%. Anything more will always create a bare spot in my tank.

 

[mckinney0171]

You can do like I did and remove the sand bed entirely. Although I have found it very difficult to remove ALL the sand and continue to have sand storms when a pile of the leftover collects in front of the powerheads. Every now and then I grab a pile of it with my net and remove it. Its such a tiny amount that my siphon can't get it.

 

[Dilan Patel]

I figured I wanted to make sure I had enough flow for when things start to grow big. I would remove the sand but I like the way the sand looks in a tank. I was thinking of adding a biggermm sand grain to the high flow. The one mistake I did was use sugar fine sand. I did test and it seems when my return pump is off the gyre works perfectly but when the return is on it kind of disrupts the gyre motion and it sends a heavy blast back to the pump instead of it being a slower flow back to the pump.,

 

[mckinney0171]

I actually recently setup a nano tank and have a relatively deep sand bed in there. I used the special grade sand from caribsea (1-2mm particles). It does cut way down on sand blowing around. But, I fear the particles are so large that my snails have tough time burrowing into it. I haven't proven that. But, I notice that my nassarius snails are never in the sand and are usually on the glass or rock instead. So I guess my point is watch how big you go with the sand size. The fiji pink sand seems a decent size. I wish I had used that instead.

 

[Dilan Patel]

I just decided to remove the excess sand. seemed to have solved some of the problem. now i can run it back at 50%

 

[Jason mack]

You can use different grade Sands in different spots e.g. Low flow area fine sand ..high flow areas larger grained sand /crushed coral .. that has worked for me .. then I got a sandhapper .. and he just kicks it all up into a sand storm for me .. so I'm still blowing sand of my rocks and corals ... just gotta accept it I guess

 

[Salty1962]

I figured I wanted to make sure I had enough flow for when things start to grow big. I would remove the sand but I like the way the sand looks in a tank. I was thinking of adding a biggermm sand grain to the high flow. The one mistake I did was use sugar fine sand. I did test and it seems when my return pump is off the gyre works perfectly but when the return is on it kind of disrupts the gyre motion and it sends a heavy blast back to the pump instead of it being a slower flow back to the pump.,

Small grain size is always going to be an issue with high flow. My last tank I had was with the same issue. I couldn't get enough strong random flow without kicking up my sand. I tried everything with no success.
I'm assuming you have an aged sand bed, so the sand has hade a chance to have bacteria grow in it. What I ended up doing was "gradually" adding larger grain size sand, 1.0 to 1.25mm, on top of my matured sand bed to keep it from kicking up as much. I did end up leaving the back corners with the smaller grain size since my wrasses were used to sleeping it and my pumps didn't kick it up. Just a suggestion

 

[Waterbox20gclown]

I actually recently setup a nano tank and have a relatively deep sand bed in there. I used the special grade sand from caribsea (1-2mm particles). It does cut way down on sand blowing around. But, I fear the particles are so large that my snails have tough time burrowing into it. I haven't proven that. But, I notice that my nassarius snails are never in the sand and are usually on the glass or rock instead. So I guess my point is watch how big you go with the sand size. The fiji pink sand seems a decent size. I wish I had used that instead.

The Fiji pink blows around too, Just like finer sand, I have finer sand I’m gonna take out that sand and get the sand you have, soon, i have a bb spot cause the sand is so fine and my wave pump blows it up. I’m not gonna change my wave pump spot cause I don’t want no dead spots so I’ll just change the sand bed. you made the rite choice! Get more hermit crabs they will appreciate any sand grade!