Hi, I have a 40gal that's been running for 6 months now. I just added 10lbs of live sand to reseed, and now I have a major red cyno outbreak all over the sand. All water parameters are good. I am currently running 2 super actinics 12 hrs/day, hoping to get more coralline growth on the LR (I have one 250w MH for corals when the tank is ready). Water flow is good, not collecting much in my cpr bak pak (plus I just cleaned the intake...air and water). I know I could run the 250w MH and most would go away, but I want coralline growth to continue so I am hesitant. Should I just wait it out? Any suggestions?
Adding New Live Sand
- Thread starter bjo51567
- Start date
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billaweed
Stumped Irishman
Sounds like a lighting issue to me
joshinjosh
Cnidarian
hm......how good?
DonW
R.I.P.
Nutrients is going to be the issue. Do you have any info on the sand that was added to the tank.
Don
Don
I agree with Don, nutrients are going to be the culprit here...Adding the new sand probably did a number of things. First, it buries any detritus and microfauna on the existing sand surface. Second, most new sand comes to you literally saturated with phosphates. I'd bet that if you check your tank for nitrates and phosphates you'll find that both of these levels are currently elevated....
MikeS
MikeS
lizardarm
Reptilian Disco Biscuit
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So will rinsing the sand with RO/DI water before putting it in help to reduce this phosphate contamination?
DonW
R.I.P.
It would. The drawback to cleaning is its a pain and you really should screen out all the detritus. In this case I think if the goal was just to seed an existing sand bed, a handfull would have done the job and avoided this problem. 10 lbs is alot of nutrients.
Don
Maybe a bit, but you are still going to get a release of phosphates for a while after adding it. Here's a thread I started on RC back in '04 on the topic, it explains it a bit better...read the first page at least, becasue at first Ron and some of his crew say the sand can't be saturated, until they are proven wrong...
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=370966&highlight=Phosphate
One thing about cyano is that it tends to be proximity based, ie it is going to grow where the nutrients are concentrated. That is why you are seeing growing on the new sand, and not everywhere else in the tank right now. You may even get a very low result if you test your water for phosphates, because it's in the sand and the cyano is using it up, there may not be much at all in the water column. One "good" thing about cyano is it is a great resivour for phosphates, and when it is localized like you are describing, you have a good oppritunity to export said phosphates out of your tank by simply manually removing the cyano. I'd do this every couple of days, and use a phosphate reducing media...in a few weeks you should be able to take care of the problem.
MikeS
