How do u keep ur sandbed and water clear?

bige · Jul 8, 2011

Whats your mg at? For some reason, when mg gets low, I get cyano.

Reef keeper · Jul 9, 2011

caudill187 · Jul 10, 2011

+1 more flow, +1 blackout, +1 conch

Also, less food, rinse food.......

Reef keeper · Jul 10, 2011

How much more flow do u suggest? ok thanks everyone

Murfman · Jul 10, 2011

That is a tough one. You want enough flow to keep detritus suspended in the water column but not so much that it is blowing your sand all over your tank. I run a closed loop with 2 Darts on it, a Dart return pump and a Koralia 3 in my tank, right now. I also have a Tunze Wavebox and a WB Nano, synched together. Once my cyano issues is gone, the Koralia will come out.

cwensil · Jul 10, 2011

What is a CUC?

fishes2889 · Jul 10, 2011

I run Carbon, phosphate pad, and water change every 2-3 weeks to keep the water crystal clear. The sandbed gets treated by nassarius snails (3), and a very meticulous Blue Spot Jawfish that spits and sifts sand everywhere lol :)

cwensil- think their talking about Sea Cucumbers.

MoneyPit · Jul 10, 2011

I use sand sifting/fighting conchs and just the right amount of flow. The conchs work great !!

sfreefer · Jul 10, 2011

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cwensil said:
What is a CUC?

Reef keeper · Jul 10, 2011

K guys goin 2 the store 2day to grab sum conches, snails and an extra powerhead

doughboy · Jul 10, 2011

Murfman said:
That is a tough one. You want enough flow to keep detritus suspended in the water column but not so much that it is blowing your sand all over your tank.

I find that to be impossible to do without turning your tank into a washing machine, unless I am missing some powerhead positioning trick. There will always be detritus that will be too heavy to be kept in suspension. I have bare bottom so no blowing sand to worry about. The best I could do without going overboard on flow is to allow heavier detritus to accumulate on the back corner of the tank then I just siphon them out every one or two days and man I did not realize how much fishes crap till I started doing this. I swear I siphon out more crap (in addition to what is caught by filter sock) than the amount of food I feed the fish, which is just maybe 3-4 pinches of formula one small pellets (every single pellet gets consumed before it hits the bottom).