ultralife red slime remover

[as1720]

Well i have not had any issue with the sand bed, no clumping or anything like that. I only have two snails to stur up the sand bed, so i plan on getting more, we just got a tiger banded watchman goby (that eats prepared food too) so hopefully that will help to stir up the sand bed as well. So soon enough the sand bed will be nice and stired up all the time and im thinking that should help.

I use ro/di water i just changed the filters so i dont think its the water.

I only feed once a day and only a pinch. I use formula 1 pellets. I only have one fish in the tank right now, and have only had just him in there for about a month or so. The cyano started about 2 weeks ago. The fish i have doesnt eat much but the two shrimp pick up eveything else, not to mention i have TON of star fish that pick everything else up, so i dont think food is the issue.

I also use the powerheads to blow all the rocks off every day, blut again the darn sand is so fine it just blows around and lands right bck on the rocks! but i dont have a issue with cyano on the rocks its only on the sand bed.

I will probably pull all the sand out, i dont like it it just blows everyware. So i will be replacing it with something a little less fine.

Now cross your fingers for me and hope it is the sand bed lol. Thank god this is only a small tank!

 

[warforged]

I believe its the sand ... I am pretty sure it is. It must contain enough detritus that the cyano can feed on it to keep growing like it is.

 

[as1720]

Its just odd because i ha a sleeper banded bullet in there a month ago and the sand was like sparkling clean! and in less then a month of him being gone my sand looks horrible!

 

[as1720]

You know what i just thought of i have a bak pak skimmer, and i had left the old filter media in it and when i pulled it out last night was really dirty i have heard that they can hold a lot of dirty stuff so i pulled it out last night a replaced it with live rock and cheeto.

Could that old filter media be causing all this?

 

[warforged]

You know what i just thought of i have a bak pak skimmer, and i had left the old filter media in it and when i pulled it out last night was really dirty i have heard that they can hold a lot of dirty stuff so i pulled it out last night a replaced it with live rock and cheeto.

Could that old filter media be causing all this?

Hard to say. It can affect your nitrate readings by becoming a detritus trap ..as the stuff decays it just will turn into DOC...then go through the break down process and then nitrates going up in your tank.

Still the fact its growing on the sand means there is more to this. Since I am not there to observe every detail like it was my own tank I can only guess.

Still if there was enough nitrate phosphate build up in general in the water column you would think there would be algae and cyano issues not just on your sand but on rocks to.

It may not be the problem...it sure isn't helping either. I wouldn't fret on that.

I still think that your sand being 1 year old has lots of detritus in it is all. Your water column if you tested and shows all is well...the food source must be in the sand. Could also explain why its not on your rocks to.

hard to say...

I think you will see a good turn around once you change out the sand or at the least siphon the top half out for now.

 

[warforged]

after you get sand changed or siphoned and all goes well..which it will =)

Pick up some Nessarious Snails for the sand bed.. good sand critters.

 

[as1720]

yeah i only have 2 nass snails! lol should have gotten more but the place i got them at they were like $3!

I hand removed a lot of sand from the top layer and will mix up the rest of the sand bed tomorrow when i do the water change the sand bed was not soft under the first layer it was tough i would say not exactly hard.

 

[as1720]

Thanks for every ones input by they way!

 

[beoks]

sorry if this hijacks the thread but is there a way to clean old sand? much boiling old rock an drying it out to kill pests, could you clean out the sand in some way to make it all dead but clean?

 

[as1720]

Why didnt i think of that here i just threw away 10 lbs of sand. lol

Can you clean sand? Or better yet can you clean really fine sand? I didnt even try i just scooped it up and dumped it lol.

 

[warforged]

yeah i only have 2 nass snails! lol should have gotten more but the place i got them at they were like $3!

I hand removed a lot of sand from the top layer and will mix up the rest of the sand bed tomorrow when i do the water change the sand bed was not soft under the first layer it was tough i would say not exactly hard.

Only place to get clean up crews down here is indoor reef. Otherwise its up to Barrier Reef in Renton exit 7 on 405 I believe.

 

[estanoche]

One method of cleaning sand that I've heard of is taking some of your sand and putting it in a bucket with enough water in it that you can stir the sand vigorously.... The heavier sand particles will sink to the bottom, while the lighter fish poo particles will float for longer and settle on top.

You let it sit til the water clears up, then siphon off the top layers of fish poo leaving ya with a relatively clean lower layer.

This method leaves you with the option of keeping your sand "alive" as well which is nice