Sand stirring livestock causing bacteria and algae blooms

[TastyScrants]

I think the source of my bacteria blooms and green algae/phytoplankton may be attributed to my livestock turning over my sand bed.

The sand bed is about 2.5 inches deep.

Bacteria bloom:
I’ve had an ongoing bacteria bloom for about a month. It’s not bad but it also isn’t great. The water has been cloudy enough to start upsetting my LPS corals.

Green algae/phytoplankton:
I don’t know what it is. I think it’s more likely to be a bacteria due to its reproduction rate. When I clean the glass the build up of cells is heavy within an hour of cleaning. (Initially thought it was phytoplankton due to appearance on cleaning, see image below)

here’s what I’m dealing with

I think this is all due to constant sand stirring. My pistol shrimp puts in a serious shift everyday. I think he moves at least a quarter of the sand surface in a day. I also have a wrasse that hides several times a day, and my clownfish digs constantly. I also have a sand sifting starfish but I doubt he is churning up enough.

I have a cheato refugium which is on a 14hr reverse cycle and has doubled in size in the last 2 weeks. I don’t use a skimmer due to a previous low nutrient issue.

My nitrates test at 3ppm (Nyos and Salifert) and my phosphate at 0.02ppm (Hanna ULR)

I used to do a 10% weekly water change but have not done this for 3 weeks to increase my nutrients from 0 and 0 (N and P respectively)

The tank has been running for 3 months. However it was a transfer of an established system that had been running for 8 years. This tank was started with a new bag of live sand.

What would be a good move? I’ve been considering getting UV but surely I can do this with better husbandry?

 

[kenbennedy]

Good questions, I don’t have any insight but want to follow along…

 

[jassermd]

I doubt the sand stirring by your occupants is causing the bacterial bloom...
Your tank is only 3 mo old and is still likely not a fully established as an ecosystem.

I have a 3-4 in sand bed and have to say that my gobies, snails, and jawfish move more sand than an entire jobsite of backhoes; and that's not including me vacuuming and stirring the sand every week.
My bet is that your bacterial (or algae) issues are due to unstable parameters or nutrients being out of whack.
What are your nitrates and phosphates? What are your other tank parameters?

 

[brandon429]

That’s the finest most easily suspended oolite sand you could use, it’s clear in the cross section how there aren’t any gaps between the grains, change for better fitting sand, or this continues. That would be an easy tank to skip cycle replace your bed with ocean direct, which when pre rinsed before installation, won’t cloud with constant silt. That sand also wasn’t pre rinsed I’ll bet, nobody does, so it’s got a permanent silt fraction recirculating too.

 

[TastyScrants]

I doubt the sand stirring by your occupants is causing the bacterial bloom...
Your tank is only 3 mo old and is still likely not a fully established as an ecosystem.

I have a 3-4 in sand bed and have to say that my gobies, snails, and jawfish move more sand than an entire jobsite of backhoes; and that's not including me vacuuming and stirring the sand every week.
My bet is that your bacterial (or algae) issues are due to unstable parameters or nutrients being out of whack.
What are your nitrates and phosphates? What are your other tank parameters?

Hmmm, possibly. when I set up the tank I created a dry rock aquascape. When I transferred my stock I placed in all of my live rock from the 8 year old tank to provide a suitably sized and diverse biological filter. Perhaps I began to remove the old live rock too quickly. I waited until coralline algae growth was visible on the dry rocks before removing 2kg of old rock per week.

If that is the case, how long will this last? My feeding is monitored closely and I’m exporting nutrients via cheato and filter floss changed every 2 days.


My nitrate and phosphate readings are in the OP.

My other parameters are:
Salinity 35ppt
Temperature 25.5°C
Alkalinity 10.4dKH
Calcium 440ppm
Magnesium 1300ppm

 

[brandon429]

EMERGENCY - Substrate change

Hi all, I’m really confused and need advice. I currently have crushed coral in my flu all evo 13.5g which due to a month in hospital the sand bed got so badly stained I can’t clean it and it looks gross. It’s a mixed tank with a clown, fire fish and 2 cardinals. I’ve ordered caribsea live pink...

www.reef2reef.com

a pre rinsed bed won’t do what yours is doing. That above is one example, I have a fifty page thread of the same, pre rinsing stops this. What’s on your glass is a complex involving silt fraction as a linking core, for fifty straight pages this doesn’t occur in our sand pre rinse thread

heres the fifty pages, it won’t happen in a pre rinsed bed. Not once, for seven straight years

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[TastyScrants]

That’s the finest most easily suspended oolite sand you could use, it’s clear in the cross section how there aren’t any gaps between the grains, change for better fitting sand, or this continues. That would be an easy tank to skip cycle replace your bed with ocean direct, which when pre rinsed before installation, won’t cloud with constant silt. That sand also wasn’t pre rinsed I’ll bet, nobody does, so it’s got a permanent silt fraction recirculating too.

100% it was not risned as I just followed the directions on the bag and later added the bioclarifer. So the turbidity is potentially from the sand rather than bacteria.

 

[brandon429]

Fully agreed. That above contrasts for comparison for sure I feel that it’s oolite makes it not ever settle, even non rinsed ocean direct settles as it flocculates but that above is for low flow low turnover setups

 

[brandon429]

Given months and or weeks your fine dust component really may aggregate and become exported but it’s an annoying wait truly if we can just swap it for pre rinsed ocean direct your animals can still burrow and it’s less offense

very nice bed and reef, but the silt component is a thorn we could eject when ready

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

100% it was not risned as I just followed the directions on the bag and later added the bioclarifer. So the turbidity is potentially from the sand rather than bacteria.

I'd try a Marineland Magnum DE filter. Use DE from a pool supply store though, not "food grade".

 

[jassermd]

Hmmm, possibly. when I set up the tank I created a dry rock aquascape. When I transferred my stock I placed in all of my live rock from the 8 year old tank to provide a suitably sized and diverse biological filter. Perhaps I began to remove the old live rock too quickly. I waited until coralline algae growth was visible on the dry rocks before removing 2kg of old rock per week.

If that is the case, how long will this last? My feeding is monitored closely and I’m exporting nutrients via cheato and filter floss changed every 2 days.


My nitrate and phosphate readings are in the OP.

My other parameters are:
Salinity 35ppt
Temperature 25.5°C
Alkalinity 10.4dKH
Calcium 440ppm
Magnesium 1300ppm

My apologies! Didn't see the NO3 and PO4 values!
Based on what you said in the previous post, I would surmise that the cloudy water is due to the sand. I recently added live sand to my 40g side system and my DT and 40g were cloudy for a good 24 hrs. Cleared up with several sock changes, but nonetheless, it was disturbing to see and experience.
Given what you are working with, my advice would be to ride it out for several days. Using well established rock and bacteria is a huge plus. I'm betting you're just experiencing the system coming to equilibrium.

 

[brandon429]

@Erin1971Texas
I think thats not a harm to try, if it works to extract the silt then it saves work. If not, rip swap and rinse that new sand so opposite of the directions you’d be ostracized from any decent reef club for the action.


diatom filters are neat in-tank extractors to consider agreed. Paul B is able to work his tank over with one to avoid disassembly work

 

[TastyScrants]

Fully agreed. That above contrasts for comparison for sure I feel that it’s oolite makes it not ever settle, even non rinsed ocean direct settles as it flocculates but that above is for low flow low turnover setups

Thanks for the information I’ll read through those threads. It’s the first time using a live sand, I’ll have to come up with a plan to prevent my starfish from starving if I change the sand.

 

[brandon429]

Swap it then order refreshment pods from algae barn, that above isn’t chock full of feed for him anyway he’s living on food items missed and various tank fare from the rocks, the cross section shows. It’s not packed with bugs and lots of them hitch back in from the rocks on new sand anyway.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Thanks for the information I’ll read through those threads. It’s the first time using a live sand, I’ll have to come up with a plan to prevent my starfish from starving if I change the sand.

The "live" part of live sand is bacteria, not critters that your starfish will eat.

 

[TastyScrants]

Great thank you. For some reason I thought he ate the bacteria in the sand, I’ve got loads of pods in my refugium so that’s one concern resolved.

 

[Karen00]

Did you use the CaribSea live sand? If so then I can't imagine the cloudiness is due to that (for that long). I used that same sand (non rinsed as the bag says) and I had cloudiness for maybe a day. I also have a pistol shrimp that moves 1/2 a tank of sand everyday (because I keep moving it back). Granted my tank is just a 5g but I haven't had cloudiness like you're experiencing from the sand or sand moving inhabitants. I also feed a lot and still no issues with cloudiness. I would say something else is going on (but I'm new so I could be wrong).

 

[TastyScrants]

Did you use the CaribSea live sand? If so then I can't imagine the cloudiness is due to that (for that long). I used that same sand (non rinsed as the bag says) and I had cloudiness for maybe a day. I also have a pistol shrimp that moves 1/2 a tank of sand everyday (because I keep moving it back). Granted my tank is just a 5g but I haven't had cloudiness like you're experiencing from the sand or sand moving inhabitants. I also feed a lot and still no issues with cloudiness. I would say something else is going on (but I'm new so I could be wrong).

yes I did. The initial cloudiness from the sand lasted a day or so. The tank went for weeks with my livestock not causing any issues. Recently though they have, and I thought this was due to detritus accumulation (I was feeding 3 cubes of frozen a day to get my nutrients up!)

 

[brandon429]

Grains that small will keep detritus on top vs sink it in, in that way the tiny grains are beneficial it seems

 

[TastyScrants]

Grains that small will keep detritus on top vs sink it in, in that way the tiny grains are beneficial it seems

I’m still reading through your sandbed cleaning thread at the moment (I’m in the UK so I’ve been sleeping!)

One issue I have is not being able to store enough new saltwater ahead of removing the sand. I think I’m going to have to reuse my water. Do you have any advice for this approach?

Also my rock I built and cemented to produce two large pieces that I placed into the tank on top of egg crate. It will be difficult to find an appropriate temporary container for these but I’ll see what I can do.

here are some images from the initial set up