Sand Help! Keeping my sand white!

[Ryan Metcalf]

My personal favorite, and a must for all my tanks, is the diamond goby. It constantly scoots around the sand bed taking mouthfulls of sand and sifting it.

 

[Daltrey]

The old fashioned way. My vacuum hose is plumbed straight to a drain.

 

[Jorge Linares]

Bubble scrubbing worked for me.

 

[Som1else]

What is bubble scrubbing?

 

[Jorge Linares]

This explains it well and they kind of started it. https://m.facebook.com/ElegantCorals/posts/1615803182015251:0

 

[Holdbar7]

I loved my diamond goby for keeping my sand clean, Constantly burying my corals was annoying though. Since he decided to become fish jerky on the floor, I've just upped the flow, got a second DI canister for my RODI, and started bubble scrubbing. So far no more diatoms on the sand.

 

[Centerline]

I think with your tank size plus wave makers on max you are looking at 13x volume/movement. For a reef i would look closer to 20-40x.

But how the sand won’t move that much around ?
I have 7 x 2 x 18 i want to make shallow reef with two little islands and white fine sand bad.
It’s around 130 gal, if i put a pump of around 3000gph the sand bad will be all over :/[/QUOTE]
The sand will blow all over the place. And personally I do think need that kind of flow. 10x is more than enough. Your skimmer will do a better job with a little more dwell time.

 

[BryGun]

You have dinos. Get your phosphates and nitrates up and stop chemical filtration and only a protein skimmer. I am dealing with the exact same thing and put it under a microscope.

 

[Alex Costa]

Regarding ro/di mine is a temporary setup. When i need to make water i attach to my bathroom faucet, waste water tube goes in the drain, di output in a bucket. I do it on days i am home. Use home depot food grade buckets with lids. I make 2 or 3 stack them, put them in my closet. Detach unit, also goes in closet.

Yor problem is probably here. Mine was.
Try to replace the DI resin more frequently and test your water for silicates.
If you are putting silicates into the system because of saturated resin, nothing could solve the problem...no fish, no CUC, no nothing....the diatoms always got back.
Take a look in my thread and you'll see that I have some similar problem.
Regards

Alex

 

[JC Slater]

I think Brygun and whoever else mentioned dinos is probably on the right path. First thing you need to do is identify what exactly you have growing on the sand. There is a method that is easy to do to see if they are dinos or not. This thread maybe helpful to you to find out if they are dinos.

If they are, follow through with how to eradicate them, some good info on this site for that. Raising P seems to combat dinos as with some elevated P levels, other organisms now can compete for that extra P and then outcompete the dinos and once they are eradicated, you can bring those levels back down but never let them bottom out!!!

If they arent dinos, adding sand sifters/movers and more flow is good. I keep a yellow watchman goby/pistol shrimp pair and boy do they move some sand. Also have (had) lots of nassarius (sp?) snails, a fighting conch and a sand sifting star fish. Lately, I've noticed the same stuff, dirty sand, but only in areas I know has lower flow due to rock and corals growing blocking flow. I upped that and it got better down in that one area. Lately, been noticing more and more. Sucked a bunch of it out yesterday. I think all my snails must have finally kicked it, Ive only seen maybe 1-2 at night lately. I have a valentini puffer that eats smaller snails so can only use larger ones but he still goes after them if they pop out of the sand while he's awake but generally they can get away if I tap on the glass and give him a stern talking to. LOL So, after work, Im off to purchase about 4-5 more (I have a 29gal). I still haven't rulled out dinos myself in my tank, so need to do that.

I keep seeing one guy (sorry man I forget your username) that pushes for a sandbed rip clean. This is something I used to do back in the day on my freshwater tanks as well as back in the mid 90s on my salt tank at home and at school in our marine bio class. 1-2 times a year, suck out all the sand/substrate, rinse really well till clean, and then stick it back in (salt tanks I just went to the beach behind the island to the back bay and got more sand). When I restarted reef keeping hobby back a few years ago, I read alot about not disturbing the sand. I always scratched my head on that. Then again, my tank is about 2.3 years old now and havent really touched the sandbed as the critters did a good job keeping it white and clean. But just yesterday during my monthly water change (yeah yeah, I dose) I contemplated doing a rip cleaning. Its alot of work and not really looking forward to that (I really dont have the time anyways) so Im going back the natural way with more sand sifting critters and hopefully I can score some worms as I dont think I have any in the tank.

Good luck!

 

[MarineMalecki]

+1 sand sifters - I have 2 gobies and a sand sifting starfish
+1 flow - it helps, but I don't think it's the silver bullet
+1 on nutrients - I used to keep my nitrates and phosphates at 0. Once I had dinos, I started manually dosing N and P each week (I use Sea Chem) and that helped keep them at bay. I stopped for a while and sure enough, my sand started looking like yours. I recently started dosing N and P again and within 2-3 weeks, my sand is completely clean, including low-flow areas the gobies don't touch. I have a 600g system and dose 30mL / week of both N and P. I'm also dosing 30mL of K-Z 1-4 and Pohl's Extra each week too. I think this is a little less than the recommended amount based on the instructions, but it works well for me. I have a larger fuge (65g) that grows chaeto well, and my skimmer keeps up too.

I do agree that trying to identify what is on the sand is the first step. That'll help determine the remedy/ies you utilize to fix the issue. I didn't do this, but should have - I just got lucky that what I did fixed my issues.

 

[bblumberg]

My personal favorite, and a must for all my tanks, is the diamond goby. It constantly scoots around the sand bed taking mouthfulls of sand and sifting it.

+1 on the diamond goby, BUT be aware that they will often bury corals you keep on the bottom of the tank. I have had to dig out chalices and leptos regularly. I am about to mount those on the rockwork and leave the bottom sand only.

 

[acesfull44]

WATER CHANGES w RODI water! I do 35 gal a week in a 150, run GFO and carbon. I have a diamond goby (monster sifter), along with other clean up crew, sand sifting star and my sand bed is white after 2 full years of running! I have heaps of flow! I over feed also. GLGL

 

[Mageau11]

My tank is nearly 2 years old and ever since I invested in my pair of Diamond Gobies, my sand has been clean and white. They make some good piles every once in a while, but I just smooth it out if it gets out of hand. They are constantly sifting the sand. I have about 30 hermits and about 10 Snails (turbo, astrea, and nassarius). My CUC is always on duty. Makes a big difference!

 

[Reefs anonymous]

What food are you putting into the tank and other than ca, mg, and alk what if anything are you dosing? Too much vodka, amino acid, liquid food can cause this. I would stop dosing everything except the big three, feed the fish less food, turn over the sand and do a couple big water changes over then next week and see if that cleaned it up.

 

[kdragon64]

Totally agree on the Diamond Watchman Goby, get a decent size one and it'll work all day long keeping your sand sparkling clean, just be sure to be careful with not leaving the top open, they can jump pretty well from time to time, I wouldn't have sand in a tank without one anymore.

 

[LV3]

I had the same issue, brown sand, despite nutrients being under control. I also added an additional DI resin canister and within a week the sand and rocks were white. If you haven't already, check the silicates in the RODI water you are getting from the LFS. Wouldn't hurt to let your PO4 rise above undetectable either.

 

[WWIII]

400 people reading this thread, you're not the only one with this problem! I don't think there's a magic bullet, but instead a multi pronged approach is what usually works. Good flow, cuc, limit excess food, sand vacuuming and water changes all do their part.

 

[NanaReefer]

Good luck!

 

[IronChefItaly]

The most frequent question I hear from other hobbyiests visiting my house is “how do you keep your sand so clean”. 90% diamond watchman goby and 10% turkey baster.