For those of you who run sand...

[SeaDweller]

My power heads have inadvertently caused a corner of my tank to be a DSB. And my chevron tang likes to take his dumps in one corner and obviously sand gets blown on top of the poop and now about a month later the corner is completely black (metal sulfide? Hydrogen sulfide pocket?) obviously the area is probably anoxic, but the lower layers are not black. The black is probably the trapped waste and has become the hydrogen sulfide/byproducts?

Anyway, I need to siphon it out and just remove some of that sand, but any harm in doing so? I’m planning on siphoning that whole area out, but I’m worried cuz my tank is thriving right now and all my acros are making me feel like I’m blessed. Don’t want to kill anything.

Advice? I only have sand cuz I used to have a lot of leopard wrasses and now have one.

 

[Big G]

Pull out some of your tank’s water into a 5gal bucket run a heater and powerhead to keep the water usable. Then siphon out the sand s-l-o-w-l-y so as to not stir up the tank as possible. Pour back in the reserved water to top of the tank with good bacteria your tank created.

 

[SeaDweller]

Pull out some of your tank’s water into a 5gal bucket run a heater and powerhead to keep the water usable. Then siphon out the sand s-l-o-w-l-y so as to not stir up the tank as possible. Pour back in the reserved water to top of the tank with good bacteria your tank created.

Thanks. I think I’ll use some narrow tubing to keep any potential disturbance to a minimum. Makes me so nervous seeing how all my acros are thriving right now.

 

[KrisReef]

How are Phosphates and Nitrates in your tank? I am wondering if you might inadvertently remove a sink for those along with the sand?

You may end up agitating the corals trying to keep the tank clean. Go Slow, and report back how your changes impact your tank, if at all!
Thanks!

 

[SeaDweller]

PO4 is 0.03-0.10 ppm. NO3 is 0.5, the sand wasn’t added to be a DSB to begin with, it just got pushed to the corners. Most of the biological filtration, including most of the sand will be kept. I just don’t know if siphoning out the black area is a good idea or if it will do more harm than leaving it.

 

[Hemmdog]

PO4 is 0.03-0.10 ppm. NO3 is 0.5, the sand wasn’t added to be a DSB to begin with, it just got pushed to the corners. Most of the biological filtration, including most of the sand will be kept. I just don’t know if siphoning out the black area is a good idea or if it will do more harm than leaving it.

I think you should be good to siphon it out. It’s not like your doing the entire sandbed at one time.

 

[SeaDweller]

I think you should be good to siphon it out. It’s not like your doing the entire sandbed at one time.

You’re right. Water change time is this week, so I’ll see how it goes

 

[Luno]

I think you should be good to siphon it out. It’s not like your doing the entire sandbed at one time.

This, many people decide to go to bare bottom after years of having a sand bed. All they do is every water change syphon some out. Doing small amounts at a time won't affect the over all water quality of a system by too much. I've seen a guy remove 1/8th of a 1.5in sand bed every week of a water change without I'll effects. For me that would be too much to risk but even if you remove your small section over say 2-3 scheduled water changes I can't see it being an issue

 

[29bonsaireef]

I would definitely do it slow, imo. Pull the sand, and then change water right after. I removed a decent amount of REALLY old sand from a tank once, and had a few colonies RTN a couple days later. Don't know exactly why it happened.. just know it was right after removing the sand, and they had been thriving for a good 2-3 years. That was years ago, and I now vacuum the sand every few months to avoid any build up.

 

[jda]

It will change the chemistry in your tank... for sure short term and maybe even for the long. Will you be able to notice? Who knows? Will it make a difference? Who knows? ...but you are removing some anoxic bio filter.

The color in the sand is normal...don't worry about it.

If you are not having any real problems, then I would leave it alone. Nature knows what it is doing.

 

[SeaDweller]

It will change the chemistry in your tank... for sure short term and maybe even for the long. Will you be able to notice? Who knows? Will it make a difference? Who knows? ...but you are removing some anoxic bio filter.

The color in the sand is normal...don't worry about it.

If you are not having any real problems, then I would leave it alone. Nature knows what it is doing.

@jda, this is what I’m dealing with when the tang poops in the corner. Normally if it was deep down I probably wouldn’t care but notice how close to the surface it is and there is a sand sifting goby in the tank too.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

That's pretty close to the surface, might not be sulfide funk just normal funk. I would just remove it all at once and rinse the sand clean.

 

[Sailfinguy21]

My tank isnt veey old atm.. but im noticing this on mine. Cept mine is oposite.. My 1500 gph koralia is on the rigjt on the tank and my 1150 is on the left.. I try to position them for whats best for my corals but when they collide in the middle they tend to blow sand a little bit but it pushes it to the left of the tank over time. I had to move the sand back to the middle.right of the tank.. well some of it anyway but i notic3d it was creating air pockets deep sand bed anerobic bacteria. My tomini tang thankfully poops on the rigjt of the tank and sleeps under rocks on the right deep sand bed side.

I might habe to adjust the ppwer heads again... its just so hard to get perfect flow but not blow sand around. Although i did use oolite sand mixed with a few bags of fiji pink.. and its the oolite thats too fine.

 

[SeaDweller]

FYI, I pulled that portion of the sand out by siphoning the area, and it’s definitely hydrogen sulfide byproduct as it did smell like eggs, although not terribly horrible.

All is well and nothing is dead but I think the trick was to do a continuous siphon and to not allow it to break and get back into the tank.