Algae on sandbed, any suggestions?

[Hellion179]

I've had this stuff on the sandbed for awhile. It's starting to become a lot more green and thick though, which has me concerned.

I don't think it's a flow issue. I have 2 K7s at 80% and two K1s, they're on a hydor 4 wavemaker. Without return I'm doing 40-50x turnover. I had to turn down the K7s to keep sand storms out.

I am doing 20g water changes biweekly now and am running a little less than a pound of phosguard and carbon in bags in the sump.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1373153772.296283.jpg

[cloak]

What are your parameters? How deep is that sand bed?

[Tuton]

Looks like diatoms...
A sand sifter should do the trick...

[tanked37]

Be careful with how much you're feeding. Also consider removing and completely cleaning your skimmer and skimmer pump. I did that after 6 months of use and my skimmers efficiency virtually doubled. Small spots of that type of algae I had on my sand bed is slowly vanishing.

[Hellion179]

The tank is still fairly new. Probably 4m old so it could be diatoms. Just never seen it thick like this. Sandbed is 1-3" deep depending upon area of the tank.

Nitrates are at 0. I don't own a phosphate test at this time.

I feed every day to every other day using pellets and only feed what they will eat so it's very rare there's excess.

When I do the water change I suction out the bottom of the tank and have been cleaning out the skimmer very well.

[Hellion179]

What would you suggest for a sand sifter? Will nass snails be enough? What about a pair of conches?

[Tuton]

Sand sifting gobies work well but research them careful as some species are obligate microfauna feeders and won't take regular foods....

[devimik]

A Diamond Goby would do the trick. Mine constantly sifts the sand - they are messy though, but generally keep the sandbed white and fairly clean.

[hollister]

What size is this tank? And do you test for Phosphate?

[cloak]

If that is indeed diatoms, they usually run their course given time in a new tank. For a SSB like that, I would just use your finger and stir up what you can right before a water change. Siphon that muck out. If you do this on a regular basis, your tank will thank you for it.

Sand sifters/stirrers are great and all, (goby's, nassarius snails, etc) but what you can do in 5 minutes and what they can do in a week are two different stories. JMO. GL.

[Hellion179]

There's a lot of trapped air in the sand. It's been awhile but I recall it's a bad idea to really muck with your sand bed on a large scale?

As stated I don't test for phosphates

[Hellion179]

Oh and it's a 150g 6'. Total volume 180g.

[tanked37]

Originally Posted by Hellion179

There's a lot of trapped air in the sand. It's been awhile but I recall it's a bad idea to really muck with your sand bed on a large scale?

As stated I don't test for phosphates

Yeah, that is a bad idea if you have a sugar fine deep sand bed (4-6+ inches). If you have a shallow sand bed or crushed coral sand bed then you should deep siphon it. If you haven't done that in awhile, then just go slow and do a section at a time over a few water changes. Either way you can still just vacuum siphon the top area to remove detritus and that algae.

As for the algae, it is caused by excess nutrients (nitrates and phosphates). You will need to do more at nutrient export as from the picture it does not look completely like diatoms. Looks like some green hair algae, brown algae, and start of cyano.

[kegogut]

Originally Posted by devimik

a diamond goby would do the trick. Mine constantly sifts the sand - they are messy though, but generally keep the sandbed white and fairly clean.

+1

[tanked37]

Originally Posted by kegogut

+1

-1. Not a fan of these ideas. You should be able to manage the tank with virtually no algae with proper nutrient export methods. Sure, CUC's are nice and helpful but in the end you will still need to manage you nutrients because they just eat algae and convert it into waste put right back into the tank to grow in another location.

[kegogut]

Originally Posted by tanked37

-1. Not a fan of these ideas. You should be able to manage the tank with virtually no algae with proper nutrient export methods. Sure, CUC's are nice and helpful but in the end you will still need to manage you nutrients because they just eat algae and convert it into waste put right back into the tank to grow in another location.

I diamond goby does a great job of cleaning up your sand. The detritus they sift goes into the water column and then gets exported and skimmed out.

If you have algae all over your tank then you should definitely look at some better nutrient export. But if its only on your sand then you just need something to clean that area up.

[mcrbar910]

Originally Posted by Hellion179

There's a lot of trapped air in the sand. It's been awhile but I recall it's a bad idea to really muck with your sand bed on a large scale?

As stated I don't test for phosphates

Buy test or have LFS test them. I broke out in hair algea and needed to start reducing phosphates. Find a LFS that will thoroughly test you water you may have more issues than you think I needed several supplements.

[Mr tap water]

Hi there if you don't already I would run Phos Reactor and increase your Circulation and cut down on your feeding this well Help a considerable amount to your problem In my opinion

[Hellion179]

What do you guys use and how do you suction the sand bed?