Need your help.
My tank is roughly 7 months old. 4 gallon AIO. I've never really gone trough an ugly stage, but I noticed from the start that once the lights came on, my sand turned from pristine to dotted with algae. I recently went through a high PO4 spike and noticed that the sandbed was either covered in spots of hair algae, or the sand was clumping up with algae. I've been steadily decreasing PO4 and as of yesterday it's at 0.72. Hoping to get it down to below 0.10 in the next week or so.
Here's the question. Is there really a way to keep the sand extremely clean? Like, "out-of-the-bag" clean?
Even when my PO4 was above 0.00 and below 0.08, I still noticed algae on the sand. My photoperiod is 10 hours long, with an hour ramp up and ramp down, and intensity never goes past 50% with white at 10% for only 4 hours of the period. Light was originally a Kessil A80, now a 360X. Flow is moderate. There are 4 hermits, 4 snails, and 1 tiger conch for CUC. Livestock is one small clown and one blue damsel, and about a dozen LPS and SPS frags. Mechanical filtration is a filter pad. Bio filtration is three pieces of man-made rock and some MarinePure media. Chemical filtration is Chemi-Pure Blue Nano (1 bag).
Maintenance is a 15% water change weekly. I've started doing sand vacuuming, but after the 4th day of turning over the sand, I still see algae creeping up.
How do you guys keep your sand immaculate (specially you IG guys and girls out there)? Or is this just a fool's errand as there is NO way to keep the sand bed absolutely clean?
My tank is roughly 7 months old. 4 gallon AIO. I've never really gone trough an ugly stage, but I noticed from the start that once the lights came on, my sand turned from pristine to dotted with algae. I recently went through a high PO4 spike and noticed that the sandbed was either covered in spots of hair algae, or the sand was clumping up with algae. I've been steadily decreasing PO4 and as of yesterday it's at 0.72. Hoping to get it down to below 0.10 in the next week or so.
Here's the question. Is there really a way to keep the sand extremely clean? Like, "out-of-the-bag" clean?
Even when my PO4 was above 0.00 and below 0.08, I still noticed algae on the sand. My photoperiod is 10 hours long, with an hour ramp up and ramp down, and intensity never goes past 50% with white at 10% for only 4 hours of the period. Light was originally a Kessil A80, now a 360X. Flow is moderate. There are 4 hermits, 4 snails, and 1 tiger conch for CUC. Livestock is one small clown and one blue damsel, and about a dozen LPS and SPS frags. Mechanical filtration is a filter pad. Bio filtration is three pieces of man-made rock and some MarinePure media. Chemical filtration is Chemi-Pure Blue Nano (1 bag).
Maintenance is a 15% water change weekly. I've started doing sand vacuuming, but after the 4th day of turning over the sand, I still see algae creeping up.
How do you guys keep your sand immaculate (specially you IG guys and girls out there)? Or is this just a fool's errand as there is NO way to keep the sand bed absolutely clean?