sandbed/algae/nano issues - take your pick.

[christyf5]

So I suck at sandbeds and if nobody can diagnose this one, its coming out. I currently have a 7.5g Nano, one of those Innovative Marine all in one jobs with the LED lighting. Lack of sleep and caffeine make me forget the specifics of the name, I'm surprised I even remembered the brand name. Anyhoo, its been running since about August or so and has been a great little tank until a couple of weeks ago. I did a water change and the tank just hit the crapper. Its a zoa dominant tank with a pink hammer coral (for movement as it was looking a little boring in there) and a green favia which hasn't stopped being happy (tentacles out and lots of growth) since the issues began.

The problem started with some vividly bright green algae covering a portion of the sandbed, I'd say a 2x2" spot about 3 weeks ago. Then came the snot strings on some of the rocks and on the glass. The algae on the glass grows pretty quick and there are some coralline spots developing as well. All the zoas are puckered up tight and the hammer is not happy, it was the last to get really crabby about the situation. Favia is business as usual.

Since the issue I have done 2 water changes, one with new water and one with water from my 180g (done today). As I was doing todays waterchange I noticed that there were some pinky brown (beige? taupe?) sections on the sandbed as well, and they were hard. I'd say about 1/8" thick and crunchy. I ended up stirring up the sandbed some but haven't done any testing on the tank to tell whether the parameters are in check. I use the same bucket of salt on the big tank and do 20% water changes on it. The nano gets 50%+ water changes so bigger issue if there is one.

I use chemi-pure blue all in one filter media and thats all, I've used it since the beginning and I rinse it before it goes in. Temp is fine but like i say, haven't done any testing as the water is new and I test my salt buckets before I start using them and they check out fine.

Not really sure what to do other than haul out the sandbed. I thought I'd get a longer ride off this one before I had to do that. I don't have any luck with sandbeds, they start out nice and usually head south. Never figured out why. There are some brittle stars and a few bristle worms and some little snails that seem to get eaten by the bristle worms but all in all its a fairly happy little ecosystem until now.

Anyway, I'll stop typing and hopefully someone has some ideas.

[rsisvixen]

I would take a stab at the bright green being a form of cynobacteria ( cyno can come in a variety of colours not just red. ) Its not an algae per se but a bacteria that also requires photosynthesis to survive. Usually its a high nutrient indicator, nitrates and phosphates.

The other stuff sounds more like diatoms usually an indicator of high silicates and pretty normal for a tank still cycling.

Most systems take a while to reach equilibrium even if they've cycled.

[christyf5]

I would take a stab at the bright green being a form of cynobacteria ( cyno can come in a variety of colours not just red. ) Its not an algae per se but a bacteria that also requires photosynthesis to survive. Usually its a high nutrient indicator, nitrates and phosphates.

The other stuff sounds more like diatoms usually an indicator of high silicates and pretty normal for a tank still cycling.

Most systems take a while to reach equilibrium even if they've cycled.

Thanks, but what about the crusty sandbed bit? thats the part that worries me the most. well that and the loss of all of these zoas with them all being pinchy faced...

[rsisvixen]

Like I said the crusty stuff is probably diatoms but I couldn't say for sure, perhaps some photos?

I would imagine the zoas are closed perhaps from low ammonia or high nitrate/phosphate, have you tested the water?

[GoFish]

I started a 10 gallon all-in-one tank last year sometime, i added about 1/2" of course white sand. Several months later it wasn't so white anymore and if I stirred it up at all out came a cloud of junk (detritus). So out with the sand and went bare bottom, well I forgot to paint the bottom of the tank black so it looked kinda crappy, not long after that I put in 1/2" of black sand, looked great for months but same thing, trapped fish poop and clouded the water if it was stirred up. Several months later I replaced the tank with a duplicate, this time blacked out the bottom using a vinyl decal. Couldn't be happier
I love the look of sand at first but more downsides to it than bare bottom in my experience.. My vote, take it out. At least you won't have anything growing on your sand anymore. Just make sure you have adequate flow to keep the bottom tidy

[christyf5]

I started a 10 gallon all-in-one tank last year sometime, i added about 1/2" of course white sand. Several months later it wasn't so white anymore and if I stirred it up at all out came a cloud of junk (detritus). So out with the sand and went bare bottom, well I forgot to paint the bottom of the tank black so it looked kinda crappy, not long after that I put in 1/2" of black sand, looked great for months but same thing, trapped fish poop and clouded the water if it was stirred up. Several months later I replaced the tank with a duplicate, this time blacked out the bottom using a vinyl decal. Couldn't be happier
I love the look of sand at first but more downsides to it than bare bottom in my experience.. My vote, take it out. At least you won't have anything growing on your sand anymore. Just make sure you have adequate flow to keep the bottom tidy

true. I don't even have any fish in there, just corals and there is buildup on the sand. I guess I'm just not sandbed friendly :razz:

[christyf5]

Like I said the crusty stuff is probably diatoms but I couldn't say for sure, perhaps some photos?

I would imagine the zoas are closed perhaps from low ammonia or high nitrate/phosphate, have you tested the water?

no I know what diatoms are, this wasn't it. Diatoms come off in a thin film or maybe with a bit of sand attached. This is an entire layer of sand, thick, chunky and has to be physically broken up with, well this was with my plastic tipped siphon. Its almost like I had an alkalinity event or something with the sand being so chunky. Guess its coming out next waterchange...*sigh*

[Portuguesenrg]

Hey I have basically the same set up in my 8 gallon , was having the same issue and so I ant and re read the chemi pure container and the blue version dosnt have anything for phosphate in the media but there chemi pure elite Verizon does so once I went and picked up some phos guard if that's the name problem was solved the greening went down big time and it became control able .

Well that's if you haven't already confirmed that your p04 isn't 0 anyways lol


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[christyf5]

Hey I have basically the same set up in my 8 gallon , was having the same issue and so I ant and re read the chemi pure container and the blue version dosnt have anything for phosphate in the media but there chemi pure elite Verizon does so once I went and picked up some phos guard if that's the name problem was solved the greening went down big time and it became control able .

Well that's if you haven't already confirmed that your p04 isn't 0 anyways lol


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well who whoulda thunk. sheesh why not put the phosphate reducer in? I never have 0 phosphate anyways but I didn't test for this. Guess I'll try some phosphate reducer first for the heck of it. Serves me right for not testing :razz: Thanks for the info!

[rsisvixen]

As long as you have critters to move your sandbed around you shouldn't have issues, burrowing stars,snails etc. I have no issues with my sandbed with all the digging going on.
Like everything in a tank it needs to be maintained either by a crew of critters or by yourself. Nothing in a tank is maintenance free

[christyf5]

As long as you have critters to move your sandbed around you shouldn't have issues, burrowing stars,snails etc. I have no issues with my sandbed with all the digging going on.
Like everything in a tank it needs to be maintained either by a crew of critters or by yourself. Nothing in a tank is maintenance free

Yeah I have never had luck with sandbed critters, maybe a few spaghetti worms but for the most part I never see anything happening in there. I give it a stir every once in awhile with a chopstick but have been too busy for much this past month. I had hoped this small tank would rekindle my interest for reefing as my big tank has taken a hit this year. Sadly this is sucking just as hard as the big one.

[Portuguesenrg]

Hey I never did tell I ran it to that same dang problem haha , and would have thought a "all in one filter media" would be all in one lol but they seem to think we have to pay a extra 10 dollars to actually have all in one

[christyf5]

Hey I never did tell I ran it to that same dang problem haha , and would have thought a "all in one filter media" would be all in one lol but they seem to think we have to pay a extra 10 dollars to actually have all in one

I was just reading on the bag it says it "significantly reduces organic compounds, odors, phenols, toxins, medications, dissolved metals, phosphates and silicates". Perhaps it just doesn't do it well :wink:

[rsisvixen]

Well in the tank world smaller is normally harder lol.
I would suggest not using your large tanks water for water changes in the nano as if you have higher phosphate lvls there it will translate to your smaller tank.
And the filter media will only remove so much of it as it will have a specific limit depending on the size and amount of the various media in it. If your lvls are really high it might be your filter reaches capacity in a few days and then won't absorb anything more, so you might need to replace weekly till the issues resolve

Always frustrating when you don't know why things are going pear shaped.

[Myka]

New sandbeds are prone the clumping because they are not in equilibrium to the water and this may cause precipitation of calcite. Do you vacuum the sand bed? Of not, I'd start. The bright green growth is likely cyanobacteria. I think if you start weekly vacuuming and blow off the rocks with a turkey baster daily, ams you should be in good shape in a few weeks.

[04V10]

I've been having some issues as well with my tank at work. I had some green stuff growing on the sand, but it eventually went away. However, after that I seem to be having a brown smag growing on the glass and a small film on the rocks. THe sand bed did get hard, however I have been moving it around. I don't have fish, just 2 hermit crabs and some corals. It's a 10 gallon. I'm anticipating that I have dinos... I've been trying a bunch of things to rid of it, but so far no luck. My corals look good, the acans are spreading, but the zoas aren't doing a thing.

I had a 20 gallon at home that never had these issues, so it's unfortunate.

[ReefGrrl]

I have a dymax 1.6gallon pico with a 1" deep sand bed, no fish, one turbo snail, 6 million weensie bristleworms (I might be exaggerating, maybe it's only 5 million), green star polyps, a couple different types of mushrooms, a tiny Kenya tree, some khaki coloured palys and a rescue gorgonian that I'm nursing along. And lots of irritatingly busy pods running around all over the place.

I use my baster to vacuum the sand bed when I do water changes. I change about 30% of the water every 4 or 5 days, and I pull out the old water by squeezing the baster bulb before putting it down into the water, then inserting the tip as deep as I can into the sand bed and letting go of the bulb. Some of the sand gets drawn up into the baster but I can control it by reducing the speed of the suction.

The amount of grunge that gets drawn up is unbelievable. When the bulb is fully inflated and won't draw any more, I lift the tip out of the sand, leaving it close to the surface of the sand, and gently pulse it to get the sand out of the baster tube. Then it's just a matter of pulling the baster out and decanting the water into a cup. I move the vacuum spots around, trying to stay close to the rocks and get under them a bit.

This works really well for me, and I have never had any issues with the sand bed in this tank. Algae control is perfect with the single turbo snail.