Unidentified black pellets on sand bed.. please help.

[ELChingonsReef]

I have some pellets that look alot like brs ROX carbon.. I am running that exact carbon in my system now.. I have diatoms un this new 65 gallon reef. That's 6 months old. So I got a pencil urchin and a fee snails.. I came home from work and checked the tank like I always do and I noticed these black pellets all over the sand bed.. my first thought was my bag of carbon broke in my sump.. my heart sunk to my feet because I just got a very expensive gem tang I don't want harmed in any way. So I checked the media bag and it's fine.. what could it be.. please help

 

[ELChingonsReef]

I posted a picture

 

[Jekyl]

Post a white light pic. Blue lighting often makes any type of identification hard to do

 

[ELChingonsReef]

White light picture

 

[Chrisv.]

Are you sure no carbon escaped? This does look EXACTLY like rox carbon.

 

[ELChingonsReef]

It has to be pencil urchin poop or snail poop.. unless something got purposely dumped in the tank while I was at work today which is very unlikely. I've just never seen that pencil urchin poop before. But then again there's never been this much algee

 

[Chrisv.]

I had some BRS rox get loose in my tank. To remove it, I took airline tubing and ran it through ba clear plastic straw (the reusable kind) and started a siphon and went around sucking them up one by one. It was a real pain but I got it all out.

 

[ELChingonsReef]

Yes I took the carbon bag out of the sump.. I made sure the zipper was zipped.. checked for holes.. even if the carbon escaped it would be all in my sump.. and there's nothing in my sump..

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

I have some pellets that look alot like brs ROX carbon.. I am running that exact carbon in my system now.. I have diatoms un this new 65 gallon reef. That's 6 months old. So I got a pencil urchin and a fee snails.. I came home from work and checked the tank like I always do and I noticed these black pellets all over the sand bed.. my first thought was my bag of carbon broke in my sump.. my heart sunk to my feet because I just got a very expensive gem tang I don't want harmed in any way. So I checked the media bag and it's fine.. what could it be.. please help

It’s probably that carbon. I have some similar from my carbon in my ChemiPure blue on my sand. Haven’t had any issues, but I have also just recently noticed this.

 

[Nigel35]

I've had the smallest of slits in a carbon bag or media reactor and it gets flung all over the tank. Ensure that any media is secured.

 

[ELChingonsReef]

Sump

 

[ELChingonsReef]

The white filter floss I have there is clean.. no carbon.. the sump floor is clean. No trace of carbon

 

[Chrisv.]

Sump

Looks very clean. If you remove some of the black stuff from your tank and compare it to a soaked piece of carbon, is it different?

 

[ELChingonsReef]

Looks very clean. If you remove some of the black stuff from your tank and compare it to a soaked piece of carbon, is it different?

I haven't tried that yet.. ill try that now

 

[ELChingonsReef]

It's poop

 

[Chrisv.]

It's poop

Woohoo best outcome!

 

[Chrisv.]

So uhhh who's the pooper?

 

[ELChingonsReef]

Thanks guys..for responding.. that scared the crap out of me.. I just put new ROX carbon last night. So automatically I assumed that's what it was..

 

[ELChingonsReef]

So uhhh who's the pooper?

It has to be that pencil urchin I have.. but I've never seen him poop like that before.. thats so weird

 

[ELChingonsReef]

This is the pooper