Changing sand question...

[saltfisher]

I have white sand in my tank. Here lately, it gets covered with green and red algae in close to a day, after sturing it around. I want to pull all that white out and go with a dark play sand by quikrete or something. Will I have any problems doing this? It makes the tank look so bad with that algae all over the place. I have no idea why I have been having strange activity in recent months, but I am.

 

[gasguzzler]

It is usually attributed to a few things. The first, and probably most common, is not using an RO/DI water source. What kind of water do you use? The second is leaving the lights on too long during the day. What I do is turn them on in the morning to feed, then shut them off all day until I get home to veiw them. I used to have the same problems as you until I changed the two variables mentioned above. I would definately try those two things before dumpnig a live sand bed. Hope it helps
-Guzzler

 

[cincyreefer]

If you get live sand then you shouldn't have too much of a problem with a cloud. If you use dry sand then you will want to "cure" it so it becomes live, otherwise it could leave pretty good cloud in your tank for several days. So this algae is just popping up all of a sudden?

 

[saltfisher]

Yeah, all this algae is coming up lately. My lights are only on from 6pm to midnight. That is not long at all. I was using RO water to stop brown algae and never saw a change, so I stop. I now have like 20 1 gallon jugs that I fill, stresscoat, and let sit until i need to top off the tank.
Well, when I got home, I could not stand the look of my tank. I pulled all the fish and rock out. Then I pulled all the sand out. I filled a tote box with all new sand and took it to the bath tube and got most of the dust out. Then I slowly added it back to the tank. After I got the sand in, I put the rock back, waited about 30 mins and added the fish back. The tank was a little cloudy, but this morning it was clear again. I am going to change my light schedule again to adjust for the increase of daylight.
Has anyone heard of putting Fa mal da hyde(sp?) in their tank. I was told by the person I buy sharks from that it is great for parasites that UVs and copper can't kill.

 

[thomas712]

I think what Gasguzzler was trying to get at is that no matter what kind of sand you have you need to look at the source of the problem. These algae's can happen to any type of sand that you have.
We could use some information to find out just why its happening in your tank.
What is your turnover rate?
What type of lighting do you have and what spectrum is it?
What is your filtration, is there a skimmer?
What are your water test scores? nitrates, phosphates, etc...
how long are your lights on?
how often do you feed?
Thomas

 

[saltfisher]

What is your turnover rate? If you mean with fish. I rarely lose one. However, about two weeks ago I had one die.
What type of lighting do you have and what spectrum is it? I use a MarineGlo standard bulb. Nothing fancy.
What is your filtration, is there a skimmer? I have two Fluval 404s and a AquaClear 150 sump. Two skimmers. A Seaclone 150 and one attached to sump. Two Uvs, too. 18w total
What are your water test scores? nitrates, phosphates, etc... All my scores are great. Only one that is high is nitrates I think. Whichever one is orange. It's high.
how long are your lights on? 6pm to midnight everynight, timer
how often do you feed? 2 to 3 times a week.
Tank has been running for over three years. The same way the entire time. Now this...

 

[polarpooch]

Nitrates are probably the culprit (though there are two "orange" test kits...I'll bet the one that is high is the nitrate test). Lighting could be an issue, too--when was the last time you cleaned/changed your bulb? Is your tank open or closed? If it's open, salt can get on the bulb, messing with the spectrum...if it's closed, salt gets on the glass and messes with the spectrum... and needs to be cleaned (IMO) everyday.
Besides a clean-up crew, the best thing I ever did to take care of high nitrates in my tank was add a refugium with macro-algae...something else to think about. Also, keep those bulbs fresh...even if they haven't burned out! I change my PCs every 6 months.

 

[tony detroit]

2 things for a long term solution and less cleaning, not from my experience but from a lot of reading elsewhere everyone with an ozonizer and a phosphate reactor swears by them
1.ozonizer run into the air inlet in your skimmer
2.phosphate reactor
both will help you greatly as well as increased filtration, and RO water

 

[tony detroit]

I'm getting both of these when the tax return comes in.
Email me for links to articles if you want to read them. Also when you run a Ozonizer, you water is Crystal clear. The way I see it, I already have 5K in my reef, 350 on an ozonizer really isn't a big deal at this point in the game. I'm pretty lucky, I don't ever clean the glass on my shark tank, I scrub the back wall once a month or so.
What kind of return flow are you running, keeping nutrients suspended in the water column so that they can be skimmed out will help you, if you don't have much flow, they'll settle out and feed algae. Justa thought
packtony@hotmail.com

 

[polarpooch]

What kind of return flow are you running, keeping nutrients suspended in the water column so that they can be skimmed out will help you, if you don't have much flow, they'll settle out and feed algae. Justa thought
Yes yes...this is very true.