Wow there’s cats in my tank?? (Clumping sand)

Krad

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Hey R2R

This one has me kinda stumped. Noticed that I had some sand clumping in the back of my tank. Stuck my hand in there and it was hard to the touch and when moved around looks like clumped litter lol.

I used about 80 lbs of dry sand that was rinsed before putting in the tank. 2-3mm granule sized. Two little fishes coarse sand.

I have 6 tiger conches and dozens of nassarius snails so it’s constantly being turned over.


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I did some research and most people had some weird ph/mag/alk. Mine have been in a normal range past 3 months tank has been running.

No cyano or Dino’s but I had a big diatom bloom due to first stage of uglies and a very high count of silica due to di resin being deleted and not noticing when making the initial saltwater for the tank.

Could this be part of the issue? Is it even an issue outside of being ***** looking?

pH 8.1 to 8.3
Mag 1350-1400
Alk 8.4

I dose kalk at night (4L) and AFR (60ml through the day).
 

UMALUM

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Question would be weather you can break it up with your hand or not. If it's really hard then it's probably the kalk causing it.
 
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Krad

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Question would be weather you can break it up with your hand or not. If it's really hard then it's probably the kalk causing it.
The bigger pieces break easily but the ones about the size of a dime are pretty hard to break. I just went through the sand and broke what I could and followed the post above. Will stop kalk for now was only dosing it to keep ph at 8.3 for coralline, not many corals in yet.
 

A_Blind_Reefer

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The bigger pieces break easily but the ones about the size of a dime are pretty hard to break. I just went through the sand and broke what I could and followed the post above. Will stop kalk for now was only dosing it to keep ph at 8.3 for coralline, not many corals in yet.
Out of curiosity, where/what are you reading/watching that advises to dose Kalk to maintain a ph of 8.3 for coralline?
 
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Krad

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Out of curiosity, where/what are you reading/watching that advises to dose Kalk to maintain a ph of 8.3 for coralline?
I believe I read somewhere that having a pH of 8.3 is the ideal range for “hard” stuff to grow in tanks. I could be total hog wash lol but figured I’d give it a shot and dial in the dosing pumps.

Reading the thread listed above seems like I jumped the gun on the dosing and should have waited a little longer for my biological stuff to grow on the sand.
 

twentyleagues

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I believe I read somewhere that having a pH of 8.3 is the ideal range for “hard” stuff to grow in tanks. I could be total hog wash lol but figured I’d give it a shot and dial in the dosing pumps.

Reading the thread listed above seems like I jumped the gun on the dosing and should have waited a little longer for my biological stuff to grow on the sand.
Well it got hard stuff to "grow" in the tank!
 

A_Blind_Reefer

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I believe I read somewhere that having a pH of 8.3 is the ideal range for “hard” stuff to grow in tanks. I could be total hog wash lol but figured I’d give it a shot and dial in the dosing pumps.

Reading the thread listed above seems like I jumped the gun on the dosing and should have waited a little longer for my biological stuff to grow on the sand.
Ha..I think we all have jumped the gun at some point or another!
 

rishma

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The bigger pieces break easily but the ones about the size of a dime are pretty hard to break. I just went through the sand and broke what I could and followed the post above. Will stop kalk for now was only dosing it to keep ph at 8.3 for coralline, not many corals in yet.
You are far better off dosing kalkwasser to maintain stable alkalinity and just letting the pH do its thing. There are ways to maintain higher pH, but as Randy says, don’t use chemicals to achieve it.
 

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