when cleaning your reef?

[sean2brown]

every week i seem to get a green film of algae on my sand bed and every week I suck off the algae and my sand bed goes with it. My question is..... do i dispose of the sand or do I clean it out and recycle it. If i do dispose of it...... do I replace it right away with new sand? what to do?

Thanks

[evoracer]

Sounds like you need to fix the cause of the algae bloom.

[sean2brown]

what can it be, my water parameters are good especially my nitrates and phos

[austinvanover]

I agree with evoracer, something else you might try that I know several people on here do is keep the lights off on your tank for three days straight. Several have tested this method and have not had any issues with their corals or tank and the algae seems to disappear and stay gone for quite some time. However this is a temporary fix. I would check water parameters and then do some agressive water changes and the issue should subside.

[Leandrae]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11978976#post11978976 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sean2brown
what can it be, my water parameters are good especially my nitrates and phos

It is possible that the nitrates and phosphates are low because the algae is feeding off of it as quickly as it is produced. I'm not sure about the nitrates, but I know that phosphates can be consumed that quickly.

Do you use RO/DI for water changes? How deep is your sandbed? It's possible that when you syphon off the sandbed that it is stirring up phosphates in it.

-Janel

[sean2brown]

I am using RO water. I even tested the R/O water. My sandbed is now 1 inch thick. I try to stir up the sandbed every week when i do a water change. it is possible that the algae is feeding off the phos and the nitrates. I am being very aggressive with the water changes. i even have some bryopsis algea on my live rock. i have sps and lps corals. I never tried turning the lights off for that long. Is that safe?

[cpl40475]

Dont stir the sand bed. that can cause algae outbreaks as it disturbs the bacteria and new bacteria can rise from te bottom of the sand to the topp and feed off excess nutrients.

[ReefTECK]

It is possible that the nitrates and phosphates are low because the algae is feeding off of it as quickly as it is produced. I'm not sure about the nitrates, but I know that phosphates can be consumed that quickly.

Yes and nitrates yes. In fact, I would be interested in knowing about your other water parameters. I've often postulated situations where somebody has actually had relativly low kH and perhaps this caused swings in pH that didn't notably affect the fish, but in fact there was moderate level of mortality in nitrifying bacteria.

These bacteria were then being used as food for algae that had settled right on top of it and took advantage of the breakdown of the nutrients and more specifically the CO2 being produced by the surviving colonies of nitrifying bacteria doing the breaking down during re population.

This is a loose hypothesis really I guess. It would be difficult to quantify or qualify, but I feel that it feeds off of the dynamic nature and principals of the system.

[Blown 346]

I agree, you can rinse the sand that is pulled out when you are cleaning, and re use it in the tank. I would rinse the sand with RO water before it goes back in the tank.