Can GFO help a rusty sandbed?
- Thread starter gfox
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Rusty sand bed? Are you talking about diatoms? If so then no, diatoms feed on silicates more then phosphates and gfo is used for phosphate removal
Craig Luntz
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Are you referring to cyanobacteria? If so try removing as much of it as you can.
Got any pics? How old is your tank
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gfox
Valuable Member
No pics right now.The tank has been running for about 4 years.The rust color is not that bad just i like seeing white sand.I have been cleaning the sand before water changes for the last year and been using a kent scraper to turn the sand over
Hmm maybe Your tank is lacking some flow?
What’s your tank size and what equipment are you using?
What’s your tank size and what equipment are you using?
Sounds like dinos. There in the day and gone at night... Does it have little air bubbles in it?
Gfo's can also remove silicates so regular changing of them may help reduce diatoms.
If you use RO water I would check the output for silicates and add an extra pod with silicate removal media if need be.
Look up diatoms. I believe this is what you have but without pictures it’s hard to be sure. Something is feeding them. check out possible silicates in your water supply. I’ve also had diatoms in deadspots in my tank so make sure you have enough flow as well
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gfox
Valuable Member
Like to get others opinion on what is going on in my tank.I have a rust colored sand during the day and goes away at night.This started about a year ago and i tried Vibrant it help some during the use of the bottle.After the bottle was done it seem to get worse then what it was before.also started to get hair algea and byropis on the live rock over the next 6 months.Last November i did 2 doses of Fluconzole and it took care of everything and the tank looked good.About a month ago is when the sand bed started to get the rusty colored look.Did some water testing first the TDS came back good with a reading of 005,Phosphate test was good,Nitrates less then 10.I have been vacumning the sandbed before water changes.Any thing else i can do to help out?
Look up the sand rinse thread on this forum, that fixes your issue we collected many after pics to show
Can you get anyone to take a cell pic of your tank then email it to you
Pics aren't required but lend other unspoken details that help your tank diagnostics. The sand rinse technique will rid any tank of cyano. If someone is dealing with bare bottom and still cyano, then the rocks are plugged with waste or the topoff water is sludge. Every other cyano and diatom treatments leave the waste in the sand to fuel the next succession of invaders. After four years, a mild disturbance is likely to produce a massive waste cloud, that's how we know it's time to rinse it all out. Thread has details.
Can you get anyone to take a cell pic of your tank then email it to you
Pics aren't required but lend other unspoken details that help your tank diagnostics. The sand rinse technique will rid any tank of cyano. If someone is dealing with bare bottom and still cyano, then the rocks are plugged with waste or the topoff water is sludge. Every other cyano and diatom treatments leave the waste in the sand to fuel the next succession of invaders. After four years, a mild disturbance is likely to produce a massive waste cloud, that's how we know it's time to rinse it all out. Thread has details.
Spanky05
Active Member
Do you happen to know the name of the "sand rinse thread"?
Tried the search function and couldn't seem to find it.
Thank you!
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gfox
Valuable Member
In the last year i have been using a gravel vac before water change,also i stir the sandbed up all the time with a kent scraper.The tank after this is not cloudy at all.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445
Sandbed cleaning is much easier on smaller tanks than large ones, which is why many won't use sand anymore in systems so large they can't easily access the bed for good cleaning.
The way to tell if your sb is being cleaned enough without hurting your tank is to siphon some out from the corner of the tank into a bucket, just a bit. If it's muddy water in the bucket, sand is filth. If you siphoned some of my sand into a bucket, what would be in the bucket would be totally clean water and sand that falls to the bottom like a snow globe. You could then take that water and put it back in the tank.
Sandbed cleaning is much easier on smaller tanks than large ones, which is why many won't use sand anymore in systems so large they can't easily access the bed for good cleaning.
The way to tell if your sb is being cleaned enough without hurting your tank is to siphon some out from the corner of the tank into a bucket, just a bit. If it's muddy water in the bucket, sand is filth. If you siphoned some of my sand into a bucket, what would be in the bucket would be totally clean water and sand that falls to the bottom like a snow globe. You could then take that water and put it back in the tank.
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