What are these Magnetic particles in sand bed?

[TracyLynn]

The pictures show fine black particles that came out of my sand bed.
Any idea what this is or how it got into the tank?
I dropped a razor blade in the tank & couldn’t find it. I super glued the very small magnet to a plant stick & combed thru my tank/sand. Found the razor blade but noticed these fine particles also attached to the magnet.
Thanks so much!

 

[lapin]

What type of sand did you use?
Black sand has a lot of magnetic stuff in it

 

[TracyLynn]

I started to include that in my first post - duh.
Pink Fiji Sand, tank almost 4 yrs old.

 

[Water Dog]

Are you using any activated carbon in your tank? If so, what kind/brand? Certain types of carbon are known to have magnetic particles in it.

 

[TracyLynn]

I use carbon in my reactor sometimes I mixed carbon & GFO in the reactor with poly-floss (like you put in pillows). Carbon brand is Marineland Premium Activated Carbon & GFO brand I don’t recall as I’m out & threw away the pkg.
The reason I’m concerned, in addition to wanting to know. My last Triton test showed the Tin (Sn) is at 16.00 μg/l. The only metal that I’m aware of is the power heads, main return pump, protein skimmer & 1 magnet holding a frag rack.
Thanks again.

 

[Water Dog]

That’s it and why I asked what brand. Marineland activated carbon is known for having magnetic particles in it. Run a magnet through your container of Marineland activated carbon to verify. Here is a discussion about the issue...

Activated carbon being magnetic?

Just noticed tonight that my carbon in a CPR tumbler looked "funny". So i took it off line for inspection. Sure enough a few pieces had an odd color to them, like a brown rust color. Out came the magnet and sure enough it stuck right to it. Now ive been using the same Ebay supplier for 4yrs now...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Johniejumbo]

Huh. I didn’t know that!

 

[TracyLynn]

Bingo! You nailed it @Water Dog
Different magnet same size just dipped into the container. Blew it off to get the “carbon” off, what you see is magnetic!
I read the post you shared- will go back to BRS for theirs.
Thanks again so much!

 

[vetteguy53081]

You are correct. When I had carib sea hawaiin black sand in a tank, everytime I used magnet cleaner , it picked some up. There are magnetic particles in some. It is said some of it is volcanic.

 

[Fishingandreefing]

So are these particles harmful? I found them in my current 120 and some old sand I cleaned as well. Let say if it’s from the black sand, if I get new sand there might be a chance there are some sort of black sand in there too?

the big piece was from my current tank

 

[TracyLynn]

So are these particles harmful? I found them in my current 120 and some old sand I cleaned as well. Let say if it’s from the black sand, if I get new sand there might be a chance there are some sort of black sand in there too?

the big piece was from my current tank

Is it magnetic? That biggest piece looks like coal. If it’s not magnetic it shouldn’t be a problem. I’d say it depends what type of sand you order & where it comes from.

 

[Fishingandreefing]

Is it magnetic? That biggest piece looks like coal. If it’s not magnetic it shouldn’t be a problem. I’d say it depends what type of sand you order & where it comes from.

They are magnetic so that’s why I am worrying

 

[Fishingandreefing]

On the next water change, I will manually run through my sandbed one section at a time to see how much metal debris or sand I can find without disturbing it too much. I found online that carbon will somewhat remove metal. Going to through that reactor back on.

always something, can’t even take a break smh ‍

 

[robbyg]

I use white sand and have always found tiny black metal iron ore in the sand. As far as I know iron ore is in almost all the sand around the world but more concentrated in black sand. I always sift through my sand with a magnet before adding it to the aquarium.

 

[Fishingandreefing]

I use white sand and have always found tiny black metal iron ore in the sand. As far as I know iron ore is in almost all the sand around the world but more concentrated in black sand. I always sift through my sand with a magnet before adding it to the aquarium.

Good to hear that’s it’s somewhat common but do we know for a fact that they are harmful? I mean if my tank has no deaths I don’t really care but my corals are dying one after another very slowly.

I guess there’s no point of spending extra money on new sand then since will most likely contain those metal debris. And I spend lots of hours cleaning them lol.

will def run through it with a magnetic.

 

[robbyg]

Good to hear that’s it’s somewhat common but do we know for a fact that they are harmful? I mean if my tank has no deaths I don’t really care but my corals are dying one after another very slowly.

I guess there’s no point of spending extra money on new sand then since will most likely contain those metal debris. And I spend lots of hours cleaning them lol.

will def run through it with a magnetic.

As far as I know the Iron is not a problem. The first time I found it was about twenty years ago when my glass cleaner fell into the sand and had grit stuck on it. I never thought much about the iron ore and those corals thrived for years. I later started to remove it just as a precaution but from what I have read in the past it is not a real issue unless you got tons of it in your sand. After going through a 1" thich layer on my 90 gallon tank I gathered maybe a teaspoon full of the stuff. Maybe that can give you some sort of reference.