Algae between DSB and Glass

[henry_ll]

I currently have a lot of unpleasant looking green algae between my DSB and the glass. I there any thing other then moving the sand and cleaning the glass to get it clean? And if not is there anything I can do to make sure that this won’t happen again?

 

[henry_ll]

another pic

 

[bona42na]

I would warn agst moving the sand very much.You have the potential of releasing nitrates into the water harming your system. Is it possible that you raise your stand border to help disguise the sandbed that you dont like viewing ? Peter

 

[sagxman]

My tank used to look like that on the bottom side, under the sandbed. I noticed it after an awful algea bloom I vacumed it during water changes until it was gone. HTH

 

[soccer4life94]

I was just reading today that Cerith snails clean under the sand on the glass. I havent gotten any yet, but thats what the site told me. so... I dunno.

 

[benj2112]

That is going to be hard to get rid of I think. If you look at lots of the very best tanks that have dsb's they will almost always have some stuff growing against the glass under the sand.
I have some of that same green stuff as well. One thing that has helped is that I have switched to only feeding every other day (after reading about it from some of the most successful and experienced reef keepers on this site) and I got a phosban reactor 150 filled with Rowaphos (phosphate remover). Over the month or so that I have made these changes the stuff growing under the sand has gone away by about 80%.
I guess it is all about nutrients being less available for the junk to grow.

 

[benj2112]

I was just looking at your sand again and I don't see any worm tracks or anything. Do you have much life in your sand? If you don't, that could be a problem in the long run.

 

[henry_ll]

Thanks everyone for the replies. Let me response to everyone.bona42na - The tank has that gray granite type boarder on it. I tried to match it for a new canopy but nothing looked right.
SaGxMAN - have never tried to vacuum the sand I have always been afraid that since its so fine that it would get sucked up in the process.
soccer4life94 I was planning on getting some Cerith snail with my next order. Right now I have about 15 scarlet crabs, 5 nassarius snails, 5 funnel snails and 2 queen conchs as my clean up crew.
benj2112 I currently feed a little every day I will try cutting back to every other and see if that helps. Do I have much life in my sand? no not really just the cleaning crew that I listed above. I don't have any worms or pods to speak of. The tanks levels are alway fine and everything in it is doing well. How can I get pods or worms into my sand?

 

[soccer4life94]

How do all of those do? Im lookin for something to clean up my sandbed. especially the brown spots on top.

 

[henry_ll]

The scarlet crabs do a great job on the live rock. I don't see the nassarius snails, funnel snails or 2 queen conchs come and go they will spend days hiding an then I will see them on the glass. I am kind of disappointed in how they clean the sand I have some brown spots as well the crabs help a little my leaving trails in the sand but as far as I can tell the snails and the conchs don't do anything to clean the sand surface.

 

[benj2112]

Originally posted by henry_ll
benj2112 I currently feed a little every day I will try cutting back to every other and see if that helps. Do I have much life in my sand? no not really just the cleaning crew that I listed above. I don't have any worms or pods to speak of. The tanks levels are alway fine and everything in it is doing well. How can I get pods or worms into my sand? [/B]
You can order creatures and sand if you want from some places. There are a few that sell those types of creatures. As they are competition I can't really just say put their names up.
One is in Indiana and they are "Inland" and they sell cultured detritivore kits for your sand bed as well as Spaghetti Worms, which are good for your sandbad. Another is a "Sea Farm" in the "Indo-Pacific". They sell good stuff for your sand bed as well. (All right...hopefully this post doesn't get deleted for saying that). I wish SWF.com would get into this stuff.
Another thing you could do is go to a lfs and asks if you could get a cup of live sand from them...live sand meaning with all kinds of worms, pods, and other creatures in it to seed your tank with. If your bed doesn't have life in it then it is going to end up crashing your tank in the long run.

 

[bang guy]

The odly colored stuff next to the glass under the sand is normal. If you want to get rid of it just slide a credit card along the glass. This will oxygenate the area and kill it for a few days without disturbing the sand bed very much.