dirty dirty dirty sand, what to do?

bluephi115

bluephi115

Member
:help:
ok..i switched to sand a couple months ago and love it. I have a 75 gal and today got a new rock that i found that had all sorts of feather dusters and a soft coral and the lfs sold it as just a live rock...anyway. i started moving stuff around and holy cow the sand was filthy back behind the otehr rocks and stuff. i started moving it around to stir it up and crud was all over. i have about 100 lbs of lr so i cant keep moving it around like that to clean the sand.
what do i do??
how does everyone keep the sand clean back behind their lr???
I have about 40 hermit crabs, a couple sand sifting snals, a horseshow crab, a snad sifting star and that helps keep it turned up.
i have a protien skimmer along with my pump/cleaner...all levels are perfect...after i went througha crash with cc and that is why i switched. i only have 4 damsels, a bi color blenny, scotter blenny, algea blenny and royal gramma, a couple red shrimp, cc starfish...
what am i missing...how can i help keep the sand clean.
 
K

kalied20

Guest
I haven't cleaned my sand in my nano's for about a year. I have a sand sifting goby that moves it around constantly. I am setting up a 90 gallon this weekend and this is a good question????????
 
bluephi115

bluephi115

Member
yeah i think i have plenty of stuff to move it around but behind rocks and even under it...wwooo hhhooo nasty.
i hope some people respond.
good luck setting up your 90.
 
rykna

rykna

Active Member
Same thing happened to my 90 gallon when. I switched.that was over a year ago. My guess would be is that the benefical bacteria are way down in numbers(in your new sand bed)....even though you still have plenty in your filtration system. It took about 2 month to clear if if I remeber correctly. After a month I started to see little trails allong the glass in the sand beds. More and more appeared, meanign the colony was back. After about 2 months no more problems. Hope that helps
 
bluephi115

bluephi115

Member
so you mean as the bacteria starts forming in teh sand it will clean the actual dirt and junk that is being missed?
 
rykna

rykna

Active Member
That would be my guess. Waste gets broken down into smaller and smaller bits, the benefical bacteria are the end of the line for clean up(and also a extremely important part) my new sand looked like tar had oozed into it, and then the little trails started appearing....they could also have been amphipods or cocopods, which also are on clean up duty, they also take some time to establish in a tank. Just keep on top of your water changes and make sure that all your levels are safe. It will take some time....if it is the same thing that happened to my new sand.
You aren't missing any animals, decay could acount for some black debris, is it the whole tank?
is it black black or brown black.......could be brown slime algae....it turns up right away on brand new sand for me.....the snails have just finished cleaning up the last of the remains OF THE RED SLIME ALGAE in my 3 mth old 45 gallon eel tank. THE EEL IS DOING GREAT :thinking:
okay that should clear that up
 
supalupa

supalupa

Member
I have an orange spotted goby, fighting conch, asst. hemits, nassarius, turbos, and a cleaner shrimp which all help to keep my sand spotless. The goby made the tank cloudy for about a week, he was sifting so much, but after that he settled down and now he sifts and eats mysis.
 
bluephi115

bluephi115

Member
sorry to hear about your eel.
the tank is established for about 14 months...the sand is about 2 months though.
it is just debris...some particals of crud and pieces of what looks like poop from the hermit crabs or something..i dont know haha.
a bit of brown algae starte appearing but once i put the sand sifting crab and horseshoe crab in they started stiring that up.
 
rykna

rykna

Active Member
Originally Posted by supalupa
I have an orange spotted goby, fighting conch, asst. hemits, nassarius, turbos, and a cleaner shrimp which all help to keep my sand spotless. The goby made the tank cloudy for about a week, he was sifting so much, but after that he settled down and now he sifts and eats mysis.
those little gobies do miss a thing!
 
rykna

rykna

Active Member
Originally Posted by bluephi115
sorry to hear about your eel.
?????? you lost me.....the little guys doing great...he loves the pirate ship I bought him. :notsure:
 
bluephi115

bluephi115

Member
read what you wrote again...it says the remains of your eel...that was where I stopped haha
glad to see so many other people posting and giving advice haha. i dont know why i come into tthis forum. thanks for your input! :cheer:
 
rsd

rsd

Member
I had a 90 set up for 5 years, now I am in the second year of my 200.
I have to say... sand is dirty.
Sand sifter stars work great... but they eat alot of stuff that is VERY good for your tank. Same with Horse-shoe crabs.
I use an Orange spotted Sifting Goby, a ton of nassarius snails, 2 tiny pistol shrimp, 2 sand sifting Cucumbers, and various other critters I can't remember right now.
Feather dusters... I have a ton of them and spaghetti-worms. They do a great job of cleaning. However... they also create deep pockets of waste.
Look up from the bottom of your tank! It is nasty.
I take a powerhead and a hose and occasionally have a little tropical storm in my tank.
I use the powerhead to stir-up the sand where detritus is too built up. I also introduce extra filters with chemi-pure and sponge filters to remove all the water-born particles.
About 2 hours later... i come back and blow off all my corals. It keeps things going great. I know to do this is I start seeing a rise in algea.
This usually helps clear it up.
Good luck.
 
reckler

reckler

Member
my goby does the job for me. he keeps it really clean. before I got him my sand looked really bad. didn't even look like sand. after about 2 weeks from not being able to see into my tank, it is really clean. he even digs holes into it to get down deeper. great fish to have IMO.
I think your question about why people don't post is that they either have answered the question a few times and get sick on the same questions or they just don't know. I will always try to post to a question if I know it. even if I have answered it a few times.
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
I never cover my bottom of my tanks completely with sand, because it does create dead spots where the rocks sit on the sand......You could also put a powerhead or something back behind to keep things moving a bit and from settling back there.
 
nvmycj

nvmycj

Member
Hi guys,...AND gals!
With all these creatures sifting your sand, is there a chance of your LR shifting and falling over? Just a thought...
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
Originally Posted by NVMYCJ
Hi guys,...AND gals!
With all these creatures sifting your sand, is there a chance of your LR shifting and falling over? Just a thought...
It's possible, but shouldn't and means your structure wasn't sound to begin with IMO
 
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