Sand bed nightmare

[mtnrunner]

Watch your Hannah Checkers. I've found my Ca checker to be way off. Now that I've switched brands and dosing accordingly, I'm seeing positive results from my corals. Buying another reputable test kit to compare to your Hannah Checkers is a good investment.

 

[Lesley]

Hi. Thanks. I do use rodi and the container for top off is brand new but will check it. Hadn't thought of that. With regards to test kit I also have a Elos & sailfert I use one or the other if Hanna results are suspicious I run another. Any idea on the clumps of sand. Could it be cyno ?

 

[JMSKI333]

I would say that that is Cyano Bacteria. The best way to get rid of anything like that IMO is going to the route of the problem instead of adding anything to your tank that will just (attempt) kill it. Like everyone always says, don’t add anything to your aquarium that you can’t test for.

Cyano is like the worlds oldest bacteria and it will always be in your tank no matter what. It is everywhere. Cyano lives in areas with any light, low flow and low oxygen and they eat nutrients and phosphates in the water.

I just battled this myself so I will give you my advice. Every water change I set a little glass dish on my sand bed and scooped up the top layer of substrate with my fingers (that had Cyano on it) and put it in the dish and took it out of the aquarium. My thought behind that is the substrate must be leaching phosphates so I don't want it in my tank anyways. Then I would stir up a different 10% section of my sand bed before each water change, releasing the nutrients that are trapped in the sand bed into my water column. Finally I would do a 20% water change with O tds RODI water to dilute the nutrients and phosphates out of my tank.

I did this for about a month and now the Cyano is gone. If you see it pop up after that, then just follow those same steps. You can always just add new substrate if you end up taking out a lot.

 

[Lesley]

Thanks Jordan, i suspected cyno although not a lot of color with it ? The strange thing is the sand-bed is only 3 weeks old. We changed out the old sand bed (it was not a DSB) because the previous owner had the tank for 6 months and NEVER did a water change or vacuumed ? It was disgusting. We have monitored all parameters very carefully and the tank has not faulted during the move or the sand bed replacement.
The old sand bed was getting a rather bad case of red cyno too ? It unfortunately isn't that easy to just pick up bits of cyno every water change as I cant even reach the bottom of the tank, my husband can only just reach it from the top step of a 5 step step ladder , we did vacumm it this weekend though. What are your thoughts on Red Sea NOPOX ?

 

[JMSKI333]

Thanks Jordan, i suspected cyno although not a lot of color with it ? The strange thing is the sand-bed is only 3 weeks old. We changed out the old sand bed (it was not a DSB) because the previous owner had the tank for 6 months and NEVER did a water change or vacuumed ? It was disgusting. We have monitored all parameters very carefully and the tank has not faulted during the move or the sand bed replacement.
The old sand bed was getting a rather bad case of red cyno too ? It unfortunately isn't that easy to just pick up bits of cyno every water change as I cant even reach the bottom of the tank, my husband can only just reach it from the top step of a 5 step step ladder , we did vacumm it this weekend though. What are your thoughts on Red Sea NOPOX ?

Wow what size tank is it that you can't reach the bottom? I must have misread your first post because I was under the impression that you were using the old sand bed under recommendation of the previous tank owner. Are you able to suck up the cyano with a turkey bastor? If you just stir up the sand with cyano on top then the cyano will just resurface as you have already noticed.

I do not have an opinion on red sea NOPOX because I have never used something like that before. But my recommendation would be for that to be your last resort if possible.

 

[Lesley]

Thanks once again Jordan. We did use his old sand bed but replaced it 3 weeks ago with 2-3mm crushed coral ag. Our tank is on a 1.3 metre stand and then it's actual depth is 750mm or just slightly over 2 1/2 foot I have relatively short arms my hubby can JUST reach the bottom on tallish stepladder. Looks good but very hard for maintenance ! First reef tank so didn't think if this beforehand. Grrrrrr