Just shut down. Sand bed turned into concrete.

[PaulS]

Just shut down. Had started tank about a year ago. About 3 months after I set it up the sand bed was very hard. It was so hard I had trouble breaking it up. At that time I was not dosing anything. I started out with about 4 inches deep of fine grain aragonite. It kept getting hard after it was broken up where I could get at it. For over a year I could not keep my alk up. Any ideas what would cause the sand to calcify?

 

[Uncle99]

Low magnesium.
Rule that out first.
Should be say 1350-1450ppm or the CA and the Alk just fly together and build up everywhere including sand.

 

[dhnguyen]

Concrete is essentially made up of sand, gravel, water, and cement
Cement is pretty much limestone CaCO3
My guess is you had a lot of CaCO3 (calcium carbonate)

 

[PaulS]

Thanks guys it turned hard when I set it up and before I started dosing anything.

 

[sante21079]

What brand of sand was used?

 

[ZoWhat]

 

[PaulS]

What brand of sand was used?

Cant remember brand name aragonite you see in almost every store

 

[Bo.]

Cant remember brand name aragonite you see in almost every store

Caribsea?

 

[PaulS]

Caribsea?

Yes just saw the packaging. Would it matter what brand???

 

[sante21079]

Yes just saw the packaging. Would it matter what brand???

Maybe..... just ruling out some DIY type sand. Maybe reach out to Caribsea directly. They would be the pro’s in this case.

 

[PaulS]

Good idea.

 

[ying yang]

Or get critters that constantly turn sand bed over and also oxygenates it as added bonus?
This what my plan is and hoping it works