fatdaddy
06/05/2010, 07:26 AM
I have two tanks (100g & 110g) that share a refugium with a DSB, so the water is constantly mixed and both tanks have ASM-4 skimmers and similar bio-loads, etc. The 100g is consistently more dirty then the 110g and currently has cyano growing.
The 100g skimmer also produces much less skimmate and I've actually switched the skimmers to see if one has a problem. It doesn't seem to matter which skimmer is in which tank, but the 100g produces only about 20% of the skimmate of the 110g.
I have similar flow, GFO, filtration, etc. on both tanks, but the results are very different.
However, the sandbeds *are* different and I'm starting to wonder if this is the problem. My "clean" tank has only a thin layer 3/4" of sugar sand, but the "dirty" tank has about 4-6" of coarse grain sand. I wonder if the sand bed is trapping detritus and then throwing off nutrients.
Any comments? I think I'll syphon off the sand bed during water changes and then eventually replace with a sugar sand.
The 100g skimmer also produces much less skimmate and I've actually switched the skimmers to see if one has a problem. It doesn't seem to matter which skimmer is in which tank, but the 100g produces only about 20% of the skimmate of the 110g.
I have similar flow, GFO, filtration, etc. on both tanks, but the results are very different.
However, the sandbeds *are* different and I'm starting to wonder if this is the problem. My "clean" tank has only a thin layer 3/4" of sugar sand, but the "dirty" tank has about 4-6" of coarse grain sand. I wonder if the sand bed is trapping detritus and then throwing off nutrients.
Any comments? I think I'll syphon off the sand bed during water changes and then eventually replace with a sugar sand.