vacuuming or cleaning sand

petemichelle · Apr 8, 2014

I have added a BRS phosphate reactor, and am running BRS high grade GFO and carbon in it. I also use the red sea no pox. still the green hair algae grows. I've added emerald crabs and a hippo tang. the hippo tang won't eat the algae, (should have gotten a yellow tang, I hear they eat more algae.) please post if you find something that works. I have a 18 month old 29 gal bio cube. alk 12.2, calcium 450, mag 1360. I've cut the feeding way down to the point I've got to keep a real good eye on the corals to see if there are any changes. I switch between brine shrimp one day and frozen mysis shrimp the next. I do rinse the frozen food and brine shrimp before I put it in the tank. also the feeding is gradual so that I can see that everything gets eaten before it hits the rocks or sand. i'm about to do the 3 days of darkness, but am concerned about the effect it may have on the corals.

does anybody know how 3 days of darkness will effect the corals?

also do you guys vacuum your sand? I have 2 inches of natures ocean .5 to 1.7 size grain sand. obviously if i use a gravel type siphon vacuum like on fresh water gravel tanks, it will suck up the sand because it is so fine. how do you guys clean your sand?

mike007 · Apr 8, 2014

Have you tested for phosphates and nitrates? Vacuuming your sand is a debatable subject. Some say to leave it along and others say to clean it. There are a lot of beneficial organisms in the sand bed. Algae problems are normally caused by excess nutrients. Also what lighting are you using?

Waters · Apr 8, 2014

Are you using RO/DI or tap water? If you have green hair algae, then you either have higher levels of phosphates or nitrates (or both). What is your water change routine? I do vacuum the top layer of sand every time I do a water change which is about once a week. I don't have the extremely small sand grains though. 3 days of darkness should have no effect on your corals but unfortunately that isn't going to help your nuisance algae issue....you need to figure out what is causing it to grow or it will just keep on coming back.

skinz78 · Apr 8, 2014

I vacuum the top layer of the sand in my tank, but I try not to go more than say 1/2" into it.

petemichelle · Apr 8, 2014

skinz78 said:
I vacuum the top layer of the sand in my tank, but I try not to go more than say 1/2" into it.

what are the procedures and tools you use to vacuum the sand out? please be very detailed as I have never vacuumed my sand before or seen it done. does the sand also get vacuumed out of the tank? how do you then clean it and separate it from the gunk after you have it out of the display tank and in the 5 gallon bucket? do you then just put it back in after you've separated it or do you put in new sand ? I know everyone probably has a different version in the way they do things but please share that with me.

Reefing Madness · Apr 8, 2014

The 3 days lights out will not harm the corals.

petemichelle · Apr 8, 2014

Waters said:
Are you using RO/DI or tap water? If you have green hair algae, then you either have higher levels of phosphates or nitrates (or both). What is your water change routine? I do vacuum the top layer of sand every time I do a water change which is about once a week. I don't have the extremely small sand grains though. 3 days of darkness should have no effect on your corals but unfortunately that isn't going to help your nuisance algae issue....you need to figure out what is causing it to grow or it will just keep on coming back.

i've been dosing with red sea no pox and so my levels of nitrates and phosphates are always 0. the phosphates are like .04 or less. I used different test kits to makes sure the readings are about the same. so in answer to the water change question I don't do any very often. maybe 1 every 6 months. I also have a sponge issue. and don't really like introducing a lot of new water into the system because of the silicate issue .
also when I do the water change it always knocks my foundation elements out of wack and I spend about a week getting them back into level, by that time it was time for another water change. hence my change to using the no pox. I've been using it for a year now and have only done maybe 3 water changes. everything else is great except this algae. I make my own rodi water and salt. I have a TDS in and out meter hooked up to the rodi unit and it reads usually around 3 in and always 0 out.

My lighting is the stock fluoresent that come with the 29 gal biocube. I just changed them. they are less than a week old. I run a tunze skimmer and a BRS reactor with carbon and high capacity GFO in it. I have the coralife UV light and run a media basket with poly filter floss and chemipure elite in it.

Waters · Apr 9, 2014

You definately have phosphates/nitrates if you have green hair algae......it requires both to grow (along with light). Since it is growing, it is consuming both which is why your water tests are showing close to 0. I am a big believer in water changes...especially in the control of excess nutrients. Normally, adding new RO/DI water should not add additional silicates but I guess that depends on the unit being used.