how do u keep your sand bed clean?

[markietan]

am using caribsea livesand for my currently setup but every weekend when i go home, the sand bed has a layer of ugly brown algae on it... am quite sure its not daitom as it doesn't like filamentous to me. it looks quite like the brown film type of algae that grows on the tank glass wall...

previously was running a BB tank so didn't have this problem... before that was using black sand so didn't really see the 'brown'ing of the sand.

currently am just stirring the sand to cover the brown colored sand. is there a better solution to this?

equipment wise, am overskimming tank, dosing bacteria n 3kg of biohome plus.. should be sufficient to keep nutrient in control since i dun have many fish as well... am thinking of adding flow but would have to put in a layer of puka over the sand before that as even the weakest tunze will blow the sand uneven due to the short depth of my tank

any suggestions appreciated!

[jackywongto]

get some sand dollars.

not sure if you have them already.

Else, Prodibio states that it is supposed to help clean this up.

Not sure how effective.

Have you tried?

[markietan]

mm.. sand dollars dun live long right? am trying not to introduce more LS to solve the problem. currently have 1 blue hermit n abalone in already n its getting crowded. hah

yup.. have been dosing biodigest on a regular basis. not helping on keeping the sand clean...

[FuEl]

Dinoflagellates I think..

[jackywongto]

mm.. sand dollars dun live long right? am trying not to introduce more LS to solve the problem. currently have 1 blue hermit n abalone in already n its getting crowded. hah

yup.. have been dosing biodigest on a regular basis. not helping on keeping the sand clean...

my sand dollars with me for about 2 months.

was hoping digest can do better.

[desideria]

I am using a mixture of Carib Sea and Nature's Ocean Black sand and I am also experiencing the same thing.. all the brown algae on the sand.

Currently I have 4 Narsi snails and 2 sand shifting star fishes in my tank.. and so far, I think they are doing a pretty good job preventing the brown algae thingy.. or whatever it is ... from becoming too "overflowing"... It's not completely eradicated but in my opinion it doesn't seem to be getting more.... in some areas it seems to be getting less, and in other areas, there is no change.

Then again cause my sand is black, maybe it doesn't stand out so much for me! HAH

Try Narsi snails?

Cheers,

Desi

[TayHongSiang]

It used to be a problem that i faced last time....i just keep siphoning my sand bed. But this problem seems to stop after i stop dosing bacteria....for newly established tanks...this is a common problem and will go away once your tank is established and stabilised.

[comycus]

dun mind me hogging, my diatoms seem to have receeded now tt the tank is more stabilised... only to be bugged now by another problem...

coralline starting to grow on my sandbed... zzz

[lotsofloo]

i have the same problem with comycus only that its hair algae. im thinking of using seachem seagel.removes both phosphate and silicate

[TayHongSiang]

dun mind me hogging, my diatoms seem to have receeded now tt the tank is more stabilised... only to be bugged now by another problem...

coralline starting to grow on my sandbed... zzz

oh...interesting...coralline on the sand bed? yr calcium level very high is it?

i rather have coralline growing all over my tank than diatoms....they will make yr corals shrink and sick.

[lotsofloo]

do coralline take up nitrate

[onizukaa]

am using the black sand from nature ocean for my nano but dont have such issue.

maybe you can try to reduce the amount of lighting timing and change more water for the time being.

check nitrate and phosphate too

[comycus]

oh...interesting...coralline on the sand bed? yr calcium level very high is it?

i rather have coralline growing all over my tank than diatoms....they will make yr corals shrink and sick.

quite frankly... i dunno lol

Must test this weekend when I'm free. I doubt it's high, haven't been dosing any calcium at all for almsot 2 months.

and i have not heard of any scientific correlation between coralline and nitrates.

[jackywongto]

higher dKH will give you more coraline growth.

not calcium.

Getting old. Hope I remembered correctly.

dose kalwasser if you want more coraline algae.

[markietan]

mm.. all my top up is kalkwater, so dkh is pretty high. once a week i dose purple up too, which according to the instructions, ups the dkh and calcium as well...

last weekend also replaced all my rowaphos.

this weekend the sand bed is still brownish... at night, the sand seems whiter n they seem to have disappeared but i'm sure they will be back tmr morning. shall throw in a new vial of bioptim n biodigest tmr...