light brown sand?

[marlinmero]

My white sand isnt so white its a light brown color in most spots. i tried stirring it up just a lil and it came right back. i checked the water qaulity a few days ago and that all ooked fine. the basics plus phosphate. could it be caused by natural sunlight?

 

[wjguy]

how old is the tank?
if its an established tank you could get yourself a sandsifting star to keep your substrate clean.
and yes if it is next to a window sunlight could do it but prob just the cycling of your tank. thats if it is new.

 

[marlinmero]

ok, the tank is like 3 or 4 years old but i just moved it to olympia about two months ago and added some new sand to the old sand. is the stuff bad? i do have a sandsifter thats pretty big and a teddy bear konk along with some of those sandsifting snails

 

[DonW]

If its just a diatom bloom it can be caused by many things. Just keep you water quality up and it will usually run its course. May take a few months.

Don

 

[johnmaloney]

+1 diatom bloom. Your tank has bio available silica on it from the new sand, (anything new basically does this, put a piece of pvc pipe in the tank that is new and you will probably see some brown spots). CUCs wipe it out easy, or you just let it burn itself out on the silicates and then the diatoms starve. If you starve them out, let them get as bad as it can get, cleaning slows the process. (But if you can keep it looking good while it slowly starves out I think that is the best way to go. Pods love diatoms by the way...)

 

[marlinmero]

CUCs whats that?

 

[johnmaloney]

clean up crew

 

[marlinmero]

LOL ah ok drrr. i dont know any of the aprreviations really. i can keep all kinds of things but snails and crabs dont do as good as corals and my fish

 

[johnmaloney]

your fish might eat them

 

[marlinmero]

nah i got all reef safe fish. when i get a group of em ill see em floating around with out there shells its wierd. maybe im to careless with acclimating them idk or maybe they starve

 

[DonW]

Check for a voltage leak if your having issues with hermits.

Don

 

[marlinmero]

a voltage leak wouldnt kill fish? and how would i go about checking that

 

[johnmaloney]

I don't think it does. they aren't grounded I think? Not sure, but I have been shocked before b/c of faulty heaters, (4 times! different heaters..bad luck or I keep buying the wrong brand),....inhabitants were unaffected. Maybe it was low?

 

[johnmaloney]

outside of their shells huh? There are a few other people with the same problem.... not an acclimation thing. I know high potassium levels can paralyze them, but I don't know why they come unattached from their shells like that. You are not the only one who has that problem though. Any chance you have parameters of minors for your tank?

 

[marlinmero]

parameters of minors? there dead out of there shell. i have a few and they do great i usually loose atleast 2/3 when ever i buy any

 

[johnmaloney]

you minor nutrients... no one tests them really but every so often you come across a chem nerd. worth a shot.