dreaming reef gravel??

[iceman86]

Does anyone have experience with this sand? I bought a bunch of bags from aquagiant when I first got into this hobby over 1 year ago. Its an asian brand of sand. My first tank was little cube and I had I battled diatom blooms the whole time. My parameters were always perfect, so the only thing I figured was lack of flow which was lacking but still decent.

3 weeks ago i upgraded tank to a bigger tank and transfered all my rock but left the gravel behind. I put in the same gravel as the last tank because i still had so many bags left over Ive got a skimmer, phosphate reactor, filter socks changed every 3 days, chaeto in the fuge, big clean up crew, 50+times turnover flow, lights are only on for 9 hours per day, 10+% water changes per week with ro/di. Parameters are still perfect in this tank too.

Theres algae everywhere in the new tank. First week was fine and in the second week it hit again. Ive done 2 50% water changes and it helped for a couple days and then it grew wild again. I dont have much on the rocks but its on the sand and it leaves a crust on the top layer.

Live stock is a couple clowns, naso tang, and clean up crew. I only feed as much as they eat.

The only thing I can think of thats causing this is the sand. Possibly full of silicates?

Any ideas??

[The Guy]

I'm no expert but I think I would lose the sand. When you say you battled diatom blooms the whole time with your last tank is the clue. Like I say I'm no expert on this, but I think your no-name brand sand might be your problem.
Maybe others out there can shed some light on this.

[canadianbudz604]

There's got to be a whack of silica in the sand. Kind of like using play sand from home depot. Get rid of it.

[tang daddy]

Well if your tank is new like 3 weeks old then that's normal, the sand bed is new so it's gonna have to cycle, your just gonna have to ride it out. Usually when people start with new substrate they usually experience hair algae for a cycle then later it disappears and if your lucky you skip diatoms or cyano as you sand populates with bacteria.

Make sure you try to turn off flow and powerheads when you feed so that it doesn't go flying everywhere in the tank fueling the algae.

[RumRunner]

+1 new tank syndrome

[asylumdown]

it's entirely possible that this gravel is leaching phosphate.

If you want to test it, take some if your gravel, put it in a sealed 5 gallon bucket, and fill the bucket with R/O water and put it somewhere dark. Test the water immediately after filling, then again every couple of days for a week.

I've also heard you'll get a more 'true' reading of the phosphate that's actually in the water if you heat it up to 80 degrees C before you test it. Supposedly it causes some of the bound phosphate that might be available to plants but invisible to the test kits to decompose, though plant available phosphorous is a surprisingly more complex and difficult to account for parameter than you probably would think (seriosuly, google the Hedley Fractionation Method to get a sense of just how far scientists have to go to measure plant available phosphorous).

[iceman86]

it's entirely possible that this gravel is leaching phosphate.

If you want to test it, take some if your gravel, put it in a sealed 5 gallon bucket, and fill the bucket with R/O water and put it somewhere dark. Test the water immediately after filling, then again every couple of days for a week.

I've also heard you'll get a more 'true' reading of the phosphate that's actually in the water if you heat it up to 80 degrees C before you test it. Supposedly it causes some of the bound phosphate that might be available to plants but invisible to the test kits to decompose, though plant available phosphorous is a surprisingly more complex and difficult to account for parameter than you probably would think (seriosuly, google the Hedley Fractionation Method to get a sense of just how far scientists have to go to measure plant available phosphorous).

That's a good test, I'm gonna give it a shot. I know my water is good cuz it's rodi with all new filters And I'm getting a 0 TDS reading. I only started running my phospates reactor after the first sign on algae and I tested it for phosphate and got 0.25. Next day I was down to zero with the reactor but algae still kept growing

[asylumdown]

yah even then I'd take those readings with a grain of salt. I have recently done a tremendous amount of research in to phosphates for some soil analysis stuff I need to do for my masters. It's pretty epic, not at all like nitrate which is a straightforward, water soluble compound. Phosphate can either be organic or inorganic, and within that there's like 3 dozen different forms it can take depending on what it's bound to. On top of that there's an ongoing and dynamic process of conversion between many of the forms on a pretty constant basis, and many of the forms it can take are available to plants, just in varying degrees.

The process for testing ALL of the labile (ie, plant available) phosphorous in a sample of soil takes an entire week of running sequential fractionations in a lab with dozens of different acids, reagents, resins, etc, so it's a safe bet that the single shot, one or two reagent hobby grade test kits that we use only give the tiniest picture of what's actually going on from a phosphate point of view.

If you've got out of control algae growth, and your nitrate tests are showing zero, chances are good you've got phosphates that your test kits simply aren't sophisticated enough to pick up, or it's being consumed as soon as it's produced.

[iceman86]

Ok so its been almost a week that the sand has been sitting in rodi water. I just tested for phoshates and it came out as 0-.25 but id guess about .05 by the color (api kit).

What I did notice which was strange was, I used a syringe to withdraw the water and then I squirt the leftover back into the cintainer. It created a bunch of micro bubbles that rose to the surface of the water and have been sitting there for about 20 minutes already. Looks like the water has thickened in order to hold bubbles.

I also went back to aquagiant today and noticed they have 2 different types of sand in there aquariums. Some had the same sand as mine and looked just like my tank atm. The other tanks had fine sand and that was covered in cyano.

My rock from my old tank doesnt have any brown diatoms on it and my new marko rock has a little bit.

I do understand that its normal for a tank to go through a diatom bloom but this isnt just a diatom bloom if I fought it in my old tank for over a year.

Any ideas?

Ill try to get a pic of my sand

[baker_jeff]

Crap. I am setting up a new tank right now with the same sand. We'll see how she does :S