keeping pure white sand

saltwaterpicaso · Apr 25, 2017

well as the title states how does everyone keep there sand so dang clean. this is my 5th tank and no matter what within a few days of cleaning the sand it always has a brown layer on top. yes yes I know what are my paramaters and how old is the tank it must me something I'm doing lol well your wrong there spot on always have been so just curious how everyone is keeping there sand so nice looking

Best Fish-Jake · Apr 25, 2017

Good cleanup crew and the occasional gravel vac. I really haven't seen a good looking mature tank with pristine white sand.. you'll always get some sort of growth

saltwaterpicaso · Apr 25, 2017

I stir the top layer daily and vac every water change I always get a brown layer latter in the day

Brian W · Apr 25, 2017

I hear a sand sifting starfish can keep your sand bed clean. Seen it in person at a buddies house. He mentioned that if the tank is too small that it could kill the beneficial bacteria in the sand.....not sure if it is true or not since I cant find anything on the web to support this claim.

Brian W · Apr 25, 2017

....an of course
frequent water change,
do not over feed,
stir up sand bed every day,
keep pumps circulation near the sand bed,
vac sand bed very often
nassarius snails

tjsmk8 · Apr 25, 2017

Jimmy Lee said:
....an of course
frequent water change,
do not over feed,
stir up sand bed every day,
keep pumps circulation near the sand bed,
vac sand bed very often
cerith snails (I believe those are the ones that live under the sand : )

I think you mean nassarius snails?

ReeferMaddness843 · Apr 25, 2017

Tested for silicates to see if a contributing factor to a diatom bloom?

Brian W · Apr 25, 2017

tjsmk8 said:
I think you mean nassarius snails?

yes. There you go!! "nassarius snails" not cerith.

Thanks!

knox1 · Apr 25, 2017

I ADDED A DIAMOND SPOTTED GOBBIE TO MINE AND HE KEPT MINE LOOKING LIKE NEW .. UNTIL HE JUMPED OUT OF THE TANK:mad:

ReeferMaddness843 · Apr 25, 2017

Tiger tail cuke is another good sand cleaner. Mine grew ridiculously long, the. Decided to split, so now I have 2. One needs to go soon as I don't think I have enough junk in the sand to feed two.

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 25, 2017

saltwaterpicaso said:
and no matter what within a few days of cleaning the sand it always has a brown layer on top.

ReeferMaddness843 said:
Tested for silicates to see if a contributing factor to a diatom bloom?

yea, hmmm...

Reefrookie220 · Apr 25, 2017

@brandon429 has a method of "forced compliance" that I find very interesting. While he does this on A super small scale, I plan on doing this in my new build because the dirty sand drives me nuts!

brandon429 · Apr 25, 2017

if I was starting any size tank be it 1 gallons or 100 gallons the caribsea live sand I use would be this clean at the start. you can pick up a handfull, drop it underwater while the tank running, and not even silty particles circulate, the sand falls down because they were pre removed

we have a long boring sand rinse thread that basically sums up to say you cant rinse bacteria off sand, so I take things a step further here and rinse the sandbed underneath an 11 yr old pico with tap water, because upon rinsing and refill, its still an active filter, because we can't rinse bacteria off sand grains that at the microscopic level look like the grand canyon of surface area

if you have too bright white lighting and the slightest amount of detritus in the bed, where it can't pass a drop test, then brown growth and various topical algae invasions are common and cyano is completely common in unrinsed beds. ***beds left untouched tend to cycle through invasions and stabilize (or not = help me constant cyano thread) and this is where the hands off crowd gets their motivation to state we're crazy for rinsing.

out of personal preference I got tired of the patchy growth and some algae growth in my tank as my own sandbed aged untouched, so I became a rinser. periodically I don't just stir the sand, I take down the whole tank and clean this deep, then skip cycle reassemble

its all a fair mode of choice they just have different pros and cons. I think outcomes range if we do hands off sandbedding, ie the Berlin system 1998 called. Im not saying they don't work long term, im saying we moved on as a hobby past that into needing to dump vodka into our tanks to handle nitrate, because live sand systems were generating not reducing it.

does that mean we don't have examples of 12 yr old DSB's that do reduce nitrates to the point the keeper has to add stump remover? sure, in limited examples. most are cyano headaches and no rinsed bed above ever misbehaves, its as impactful as not having sand at all it just takes work to rinse this clean.

when you say clean bed Picasso, can your sandbed right now pass a drop test where it wont cloud if you deeply disturb it in the tank?

McArcher · Apr 25, 2017

brandon429 said:
if I was starting any size tank be it 1 gallons or 100 gallons the caribsea live sand I use would be this clean at the start. you can pick up a handfull, drop it underwater while the tank running, and not even silty particles circulate, the sand falls down because they were pre removed

we have a long boring sand rinse thread that basically sums up to say you cant rinse bacteria off sand, so I take things a step further here and rinse the sandbed underneath an 11 yr old pico with tap water, because upon rinsing and refill, its still an active filter, because we can't rinse bacteria off sand grains that at the microscopic level look like the grand canyon of surface area

if you have too bright white lighting and the slightest amount of detritus in the bed, where it can't pass a drop test, then brown growth and various topical algae invasions are common and cyano is completely common in unrinsed beds. ***beds left untouched tend to cycle through invasions and stabilize (or not = help me constant cyano thread) and this is where the hands off crowd gets their motivation to state we're crazy for rinsing. its all a fair mode of choice they just have different pros and cons. I think outcomes range if we do hands off sandbedding, ie the Berlin system 1998 called. Im not saying they don't work long term, im saying we moved on as a hobby past that into needing to dump vodka into our tanks to handle nitrate, because live sand systems were generating not reducing it.

does that mean we don't have examples of 12 yr old DSB's that do reduce nitrates to the point the keeper has to add stump remover? sure, in limited examples. most are cyano headaches and no rinsed bed above ever misbehaves, its as impactful as not having sand at all it just takes work to rinse this clean.

when you say clean bed Picasso, can your sandbed right now pass a drop test where it wont cloud if you deeply disturb it in the tank?

I agree with your point about not being able to rinse off the bacteria. However, unless you are on well water with no chlorine, the not washed off bacteria will be dead from the chlorine if you are using tap water.

Jack Eskay · Apr 25, 2017

Jimmy Lee said:
I hear a sand sifting starfish can keep your sand bed clean. Seen it in person at a buddies house. He mentioned that if the tank is too small that it could kill the beneficial bacteria in the sand.....not sure if it is true or not since I cant find anything on the web to support this claim.

+1 on the starfish, I have one in my 70 and my sand stays algae free

Isaac Alves · Apr 25, 2017

A Diamon Goby was my savior. Seriously, the most amazing member of cleanup crew...and he doesn't even know that he's not a member. Since his introduction, I've had no issues with any surface discoloring of my sand. And I have a ton of hermits and snails that burrow into the sand like a conch.

brandon429 · Apr 25, 2017

regarding tap water rinsing

someone should run a digestion test on sand pre and post rinse, no rock in the equation only sand, we can check it then if they bac survive using ammonia digest testing, neat way to cross verify

im already sure they make the rinse ok, but for others to see and measure we'd have to digest test some sand pre and post rinse.