Sandbed issues

[ckozma]

I have a four year old 65g reef tank that was once full of thriving coral and fish. I let it go for about a year due to health issues, and did not do any water changes. The tank was still up and all equipment was running, I just did not do any water changes and very rarely emptied the skimmer. I had to buy a new pump for it even.
The tank had algae everywhere when I decided that I was going to fix it and take care of it again. All different kinds. The top layer of the sand was hard and calcified. I have a sump with cheato and I just replaced it with a fresh handful. I moved most of the rock to a Rubbermaid bin with a skimmer, heater, and water movement pump. So that helped get rid of most of the algae over the past few months. I am also running a media reactor with PO4X4 in it currently, a larger amount than I ever have had to before. But the phosphates never get under 0.07 no matter what I do, even with media in the reactor constantly!
So I talked to some people and they said that the sandbed was the problem. I did a test run and sucked out 5 gallons. Testes for phosphates before and after using Hannah checker. Before was 0.07, after was 0.14. This morning I checked again, and it is not 0.16! I barely even got any sand out with that 5 gallons! This is so frustrating. Should the sand come out? Do it little by little like 5 gallons a week? Do it all at once? Don't do anything and run media in the reactor until it straightens itself out? I am at a loss, and here are a few pics of whats going on.

 

[DaveMorris]

I would remove all of the sand and either go barebottom (which I have always hated) or add in new sand. If you have a lot of livestock in it, I would use "live sand" either store bought or from a fellow reefer. That would minimize any cycle that may occur. I would still expect some cycling to happen, but if your levels are already moving, it would be better to just get it over with. Maybe put your corals and fish in with the rock until the sand is swapped out. Having lots of clean up crew in there will help keep the sand sifted around so it is less likely to become a calcium brick.

 

[tankstudy]

It might be more then just your sand bed. If you left your tank alone like that for that long, there is a possibility your rocks maybe leaching phosphates now too.

So even if you did remove your sandbed, your rocks would also continue to leach phosphates.

Pull out a rock, put it in fresh saltwater with a powerhead. Test to see if you have phosphates after 2-3 days.

You can also do the same test with the sand.

This will confirm what is leaching phosphates.

The good thing is that if you continue to run a reactor, it will continue to remove the Leaching PO4. However, the sad thing is that it will only remove the PO4 at the rate of which it leaches back in to the water column which could be many many months =d.

 

[ckozma]

Yes, it is in the rocks also. That's why I have been cycling them through that Rubbermaid and blowing them off with a powerhead every once in a while. The skimmer that is in that tub has been skimming dark green stuff like crazy. I think that rock is in a lot better shape than it was before though. I guess I really need to change this sand bed out as suggested. If I was to do it all at once I would just use the other two Rubbermaid tubs I have and put the couple of fish I have and the corals in one tub, and put the rest of the rock in the other. Split the water between the two. Then just drain all water out of the tank, and scoop it out. Then I could just put everything back in along with one big scoop of sand to re-seed the new live sand. I would then get live more sand after a week or two and put that in using a pvc pipe. But people have said that this is not a good method, that I need to slowly suck it out while doing WC. This will take six months and constatnyl stress stuff out, I'm not sure about this method at all. That's why I did a 5g test.

 

[nelson.jdautobody]

Following. I'm in the midst of switching for sand bed to bare bottom as well. I started with just a few scoops with a small Tupperware at a time during each water change but some of my corals did not dig that at all. So I went to the hardware store and got a 3/4" tubing hose and am now just sucking it out manually during the weekly water changes and it seems to be working alot better for my corals, but like you said-only getting a bit at a time. Wish I could just pull everything out and get it all at once but don't want to upset the balance of the reef ya know with dramatic change to fast