How deep?Problems with?

i have roughly 4'' of sand in mine. never no problem in mine if you got room sand shifting star fish help and if you dont snails work i use both. i bought a clean up crew with periwinkles snails they live under your sand all the time you never see them come out unless you move some rock or dig them up i like reefcleaners.org you can get them there. nassarius work the sand to. one thing with reef cleaners they are small when you get them but they will grow. i keep alot of different snails in my tank. and every now and then i stir up my sand i belive it helps me feed some of my corals. yes i would have a deep bed

 

The problem w/ the sandsifting stars is they eat all the life in the DSB that is NEEDED to maintain it properly! If you want a DSB to work at its peak you must go w/o sandsifting stars. IF you like the look of a DSB but don't need it to WORK than a sandsifter is right for you.

 

water current on the sand floor helps alot

 

First what are my nuitriet level? I am reading 0 po4 and barley reading nitrates at maybe.5

i have done 4 40 gallon water changes in the last 5 weeks due to the messy ive had of algea. I had a post about the algea here and found cirulaction and some issues under the lr.

I just started to clean the media(bio balls) last week doing 1/4 at a time. They have not been touched in the 9 mo Its been running again being a newbie i did not realize they needed cleaning I thought the buildup on them was good again my mistake and lesson learned. There is still some broken down waste and algae on the bio balls but I do clean the pads in the sump weekly.

I hope these answer the questions. I have an ro unit for water and feed every 2 days. I do thing the bio balls are the source of my nitrates but time will tell

 

How Sandbeds REALLY Work by Ronald L. Shimek, Ph.D. - Reefkeeping.com
Here is the link I posted in the other thread!

 

old lamps can give you algae

 

im sorry not periwinkles snails i meant planaxis snails

 

Hi miranda, diatoms aren't a real issue, just unsightly. It means the tank is healthy and depending on how long it has been up and what you feed your Corals, could just be going through small cycles. Using Algone, adding a Phosphate reactor and use Pura Phoslock in it and make sure your lights are not losing their spectrum. Florescent bulbs need to be changed every 6 mos. T5s every 9-12 mos. and Power compaqs every 8mos. These are guidelines but well proven. These measures should prevent excessive Diatoms and other "bad" algae such as "Hair".

 

Typically a well cooled T5 will easily retain spectrum 14-18 months but that is beside the point.... Diatoms are the simplest of all algaes and readily eaten by just about every herbivore, BUT diatoms on the sand present a different issue as most crabs will NOT eat algae of the sand, whereas many conchs do. Like unclejed mentioned reducing nutrients will help BUT SiO4 are the nutrients that need to be lowered as thats what diatoms use to build there "shells". Granular ferric oxide can help as well as Phosguard by Seachem, or other PO4 and SiO4 removers. Also increasing the water flow towards the sand will help.

Good Luck!

 

I'm just a rookie, but my 3" sand bed bubbles nitrogen all day. I just have some snails and lots of little worms. I have been working on bringing it all up to 4".

I have no algae in the tank to speak of. My params are good, but I do have some of that redish brown stuff covering my sand in places. I just reworked my flow in my tank and I have good flow across my sand in those places. Don't know why I have it. I just started to use some phos sponge just to see what it did. No real change yet.