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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

Vacuuming sand bed in pico tank
 

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.