sand q

[robster]

hi
this is not my normal reef q but for my fowlr
and discoraged ive always used cc in my reef but 6 mos ago i thought i would try sand in my 75 fowlr contents are-
20 pounds live arganite
15 pounds sea sand? cheap from lfs
110 pc+80 watts std
20 pounds live rock
1 venturi skimmer
2 power filters
1 lion fish
1 wrasse
1 picasso trigger
ph-8.0 sal-1.023 cal-400 alk-12 amonia-0 nitrate-10 nitrite-0 phos-1.5
problem is that top of sand is always brown (diatoms) can stir daily and diatoms are back the next day and only on the sand rest of tank has some coraline and misc alga any sugestions before it gos back to cc-thanx

 

[adrian]

Your problem is your phosphates and not your sand, unless its a very new sandbed, then a diatom bloom is not out of the norm. Get your phosphates down and see what happens, Water changes work best to get it down quickly, then you could research dripping kalkwasser to enable your skimmer to suck some up, you could also add some macroalgae to feed on PO4, and of course watch your nutrient import, feeding additives ect.HTH

 

[robster]

thanx for the reply have thouhgt the phos could be the cause but if the 15 pounds of cheap sand is silica could this also be a cause of the brown coating.

 

[adrian]

Yes, that may also be fueling the diatoms. I once got what I thought was southdowns play sand from home depot for a seahorse tank, it ended up being silicate sand and up until the point I broke the tank down I had the worst hair and cyano problem. It will be a task to fix that if you find thats what is causing the problem But The phosphates should definetely be undetecable. Good luck!

 

[b_ball12_99]

Phosphates and/or silicates.