Sand is turning brown

B

big fish

Guest
My sand is turning brown and i was wandering what in need to do.
Can i get some kind of snail that stir up the sand or do i have a bigger problem. :help: It is not the hole tank it is just in some spots.
 

treybomb

Active Member
i have the same problem so everyday i just stir up the sand since i dont have a cleanup up crew
i would be interested to know what the problem is...?
for me its pretty much the whole tank by the end of the day....
 

carshark

Active Member
using tapwater, new tanks, high nitrates and phosphates, leaving lights on too long. all of these are a few things that lead to brown diatoms, check your parameters, see if you can reduce your lighting to around 8-10 hours a day, get a few nass. snails, turbo snails, astrea snails, hermits, all of these help keep your glass and sand clean and white (unless of course you have an aggressive tank where other fish will eat them)
 
B

big fish

Guest
Well i have some asteras and hermits in my tank and it is not all that new about 5months. I domt use tap water and leave the lights on for 9 hours. I check the water every week and it is ok. I am not shure what is going on.
 

carshark

Active Member
Originally Posted by big fish
Well i have some asteras and hermits in my tank and it is not all that new about 5months. I domt use tap water and leave the lights on for 9 hours. I check the water every week and it is ok. I am not shure what is going on.
5 months is still pretty new... how big is your tank? I have a 75 and no corals at the present just LR i run about 15 hermits, 2 turbos, and 8 astreas.. that seems to do the trick..
 
B

big fish

Guest
My tank is only a 10gal. I have 4 asteras and 10 hermits I may need to get some other kind of snail live rock and about 8 corals.
 

jacksdad

Member
IMO algae is the single biggest problem in reef tanks. It took me months to finally get it under control. The best thing to do is pick or vaccuum the algae out. I wouldn't stir it up because then you aren't eliminating the problem just moving it. I had carpet algae in my cube for about 4 months and would pick big clumps out every other day. One day it just stop coming back. Phosban works pretty well. It will eliminate phosphates that algae feed on.
Good luck and try to be patient.
Bob
 

gwiley

Member
get a sand sifting star fish, they are the greatest thing in keeping your sand nice and white. plus they are really fun to watch.
 

hot883

Active Member
Like Jacksdad said, I wouldn't stir the sand either. You are asking for trouble if you ask me. Diatoms are pretty common in newer tanks or ones that the flow is not that good. How many power heads do you have? And are they varied in height and front to back?
 

laddy

Active Member
Treat the problem, not the symptom.......stirring the sand is contradictory to what a sand bed is suppose to accomplish.
In my nano I had terrible algae/cyno blooms, which lasted forever. I cut back the lights to 4 hrs a day and cut back feeding--the amount of nutrients I was adding was causing the problem. You can go "chemical", but you can certainly treat it with non-chemical means--plus the upside is that you get to know your tank better!
 

sweetdawn

Active Member
my ten gallon is bare bottom but i have a little lobster in there and he keeps his side of the tank spotless debelius reef lobster very pretty. my clean up crew in my thirty gallon which i do have a sand bed in is about ten snails, a cleaner shrimp, an emerald crab, about thirty small hermit crabs, a black sea cucumber, a small sea hare and two brittle stars. a varied clean up crew makes the tank more interesting. IN a ten gallon tank you can only have two small fish but you can have lots of interesting clean up crew. Total inhabitants of my ten gallon are false perc clownfish, yellow clown gobie, two peppermint shrimp one cleaner shrimp, one decorator crab, two snails, a brittle star and an emerald crab, and my small lobster. and before anybody says anything about a brittle star in the ten gallon he is over a year old.
 
B

big fish

Guest
The only power head that i have in my tank is a small one with the heater that is built in to it it does a pretty good job. I have a good cleanup crew 10hermits,4snails,1cleaner shrimp,1brittel starfish i may have to cut down on my lighting to see of that helps i still not shure yet?
 

nanoreef

Member
Originally Posted by Gwiley
get a sand sifting star fish, they are the greatest thing in keeping your sand nice and white. plus they are really fun to watch.
r u craaaaaaaaazzzzzzzzzzzzzzy a sand star in a nano
***)
 
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