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Dirty Sand?


Tom C.

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I know I have posted a forum on this subject alredy but the symptoms worsen. The dark red stuff and now black stuff are on my glass and in the sand with 24 hours of me cleaning it out. It makes a person wanna give up the hobby.

 

The water parameters are fine. I have done at least a 20% water change every other week for at least a month. Is there something like "dirty sand"? Does something make sand go bad? It seems that it grows in the sand and starts to cover LR, then glass. It has covered all the snails shells, the conch, frags, everything.

 

Can someone please advise if I just need to break it down and start over? I have a frag tank and a 220 tank that I get water from the same RODI so its not that either. I dont want to put anything from my 55 into my other tanks for fear of contaminiation.

 

Please advise,

 

signed

 

frustrated.

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how old are your bulbs? Do you flush your membrane on your RO?

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Less than a year. I dont have these issues with the other tanks either. Plus Nate uses the water and he is fine. Some sort of weird bacteria that I cant kill.

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how much flow is in the tank?

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Cyclopeds and the baby green bag food that BRK sells. I only have a foxface in there along with frags. I also have peppermint shrimp, 2 crabs. I feed the fish once a day. I put cyclopeds in there once very other day.

 

i have two powerheads. One is 600 and one is 1200 so the flow should be ok?

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i would say the same thing try more flow and feed every other day. The MJ 600 and 1200 dont put that much flow out. I have about 2400 gph in my 75g. Thats what you call flow.

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The tank has been up for about six months at least. I have a 48" T5 on from 7:00am till 7:00pm. Then i have those small blue portable leds on at night.

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There's got to be something more than flow going on here. I mean I've seen his tank...I've seen him scrub the rocks clean and do a 75% water change, and then w/in a week the whole place was covered with **** (no better way to discribe it). Now granted more water flow is a start, but I don't think it's anywhere near gonna end his issue. When within 3 days time frags, glass, snails, etc can be covered in this stuff. Sumfin aint right!

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There's got to be something more than flow going on here. I mean I've seen his tank...I've seen him scrub the rocks clean and do a 75% water change, and then w/in a week the whole place was covered with **** (no better way to discribe it). Now granted more water flow is a start, but I don't think it's anywhere near gonna end his issue. When within 3 days time frags, glass, snails, etc can be covered in this stuff. Sumfin aint right!

 

Now I've seen a lot of people's sand and I don't know if this helps but Tom has some pretty nasty crap living down there. Is there a way to maybe sift his sand and get rid of some of the nastiness in there or is this a null issue. Not to be mean, but Tom has crashed a tank or two in his day (haven't we all) and much of the sand has been recycled from those tanks. Could this be a part of the issue?

 

If not for Tom's sake, for the sake of the fish and coral in the tank, please help this man out. Let's say I loan him some more powerheads to up the flow, what else can he do?

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Cut back the lights to 8 hours, feed less and make sure to backflow his RO membrane, and last but not least get a new hobby (Tom you know i am kidding Mr. FishKiller)

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Cut back the lights to 8 hours, feed less and make sure to backflow his RO membrane, and last but not least get a new hobby (Tom you know i am kidding Mr. FishKiller)

 

darn, now that's comedy!!

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:biggrin: Thank you, thank you. Tom when you coming over man?
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:biggrin: Thank you, thank you. Tom when you coming over man?

 

Oh maybe it's those blue spot lights you use on your tank? Do you know what kind of light they push into the tank? They aren't PCs or T5s or VHO...what type of light are they?

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HAHA your funny Nate! darn fish are like, this guy keeps shining these blue lights on me when i am trying to sleep! Tom they are LED lights for the moonlight effect. Say spot lights and you are going to make people think you are crazy!

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If I remember that far back it was the stuff with the sea water already in it. I also have "Spot Lights" in the tank which are the blue leds that make it look like moon beams.

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(edited)

When this happens in my tanks, I do something I don't often do, I change water! Now, water changes require good Ro/Di water with very low (<5) TDS. Change 25% a week until this situation improves. I also use polyfilter, which is my general "anytime anything is wrong, use polyfilter" rule.

 

Yes more flow is helpful. However, I have seen cyno billow in the flow. It is not a silver bullet. It is time to change your lights, T5 or VHO lights need to be replaced every 6-9 months in my estimation. Your entire tank will be happier.

 

I use an airline hose and siphon the stuff out. This is very effective for me. It beats scrubbing.

 

The problem is that your tank has the stuff in it that cyno likes to eat. The solution to pollution is dilution and chemical filtering to take away as much of the phosphates and what ever else cyno likes to eat.

Edited by quazi
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The tank has been up for about six months at least. I have a 48" T5 on from 7:00am till 7:00pm. Then i have those small blue portable leds on at night.

 

I just recently started all this, and was told to 'build up' to 9 hours. 12 seems like a lot of light, even if that's what you get near the equator.

 

bob

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Ok, I know this will shock the WAMAS community to the core. Its like something from a horror movie. Its "The Blob" meets "The creature from the black aquarium." Here are pictures of the tank I came home to tonight. This was 48 hours after I cleaned it.

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Ok, I know this will shock the WAMAS community to the core. Its like something from a horror movie. Its "The Blob" meets "The creature from the black aquarium." Here are pictures of the tank I came home to tonight. This was 48 hours after I cleaned it.

 

Tom where are the pics?

 

Raf

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site wont load them into the thread. Take a look in the gallery under tanks. That is how much this stuff grows in 48 hours...

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