How do you keep your sand so white??

[Paradox]

My sand has been slightly browning each day. At night, it gets cleaned a little from the crew, but after a day of full lights, its got a brown cover again. Does this ever stop? I am using ro di and my new TDS reads 0 for its output water. The water here in SF reads around 100 ppm. However, 2 water changes ago, I accidentally did a 20% water change with just RO no DI (was still elarning how to use my rodi unit). before this, I had no diatoms. I also feed lightly. I give a few pellets of food to the few fish i have a day. And about a month ago, I changed my CC substrate to live sand. I didnt have any browning untill a couple weeks after I did the substrate change. Around the time I did the RO water change.

Willl this go away? I want the pretty white sand!!


D.

[Prismaco]

Do you have a sand sifter ? Changing to LS may have given it a small cycle. How many snails/crabs/shrimp do you have ?? You also state in the profile that you have 40lbs and increasing. When was the last tim you added some LR. On mine what I did was I syphone out what algea you can and then just let your clean up crew do there job. I would go witha bout 65 or snails with your tank...also, does your sand have flow over it ? I had that red ugly aglea before because there was no water movement on it. Added movement and it went away. Also, how often do you clean your canister ? I would pesonaly stay away from that and just let your skimmer/LR/LS do there jobs on filtering....well...keep us up to date...


-Paul

[Paradox]

I dont have any hair or cyano algae anymore..Just some sliht browning that appears on the sand only. Ive only added a few pieces of LR, not enough to really make a difference I believe. I have some small clams that live in the sand bed, brittle worms, about 25 snails, but they dont seem to clean sand, and 25 various hermits. I was thinking of getting a sand shifting star or some snails that bury themselves in the sand. I was just wondering if its normal to be getting diatoms algae regularly or if it is something that will go away and caused by either my ro water change or substrate change.

All water parameters are fine
0 ammonia
0 nitire
~5 nitrate

Ive been wanting to remove the canister, but since ive done so many changes in the past few months, I was afraid of causing more instability. Im intending to create a small refugium soon and hopefully I can remove the canister then.

Do you think I will be ok if I just remove the canister?

Thanks for the reply

D.

[Reefdude5]

I can't keep it white!

[Geoff]

if it is just a light browning than it is prolly diatoms. not a big deal they will go away in a month or two. when your sponges start growing they will lock up most of the silicates so the diatoms will have a harder time growing. flow is another way to keep the sand white. lots of it!

G~

[Paradox]

i try to keep my pwr heads on the sand, but its tricky to get it it so you down wake up to seeing a bigsand dune and some of your live rocks covered.

Thanks, hopefully it will clear up soon.

D.

[tkjeffrey]

I have about 70 snails in my tank, and not a speck of algae, I sometimes get the brown stuff on the sand but it seems like nasirrus sp? snails take care of the brown stuff (diatoms). I have astrea,bymble bee,cerith,nasirrus snails in my tank and they were the best investment in the tank I could of made, IMO

[Paradox]

Thanks for the info.

Time to build up my snail army.. =)

[tkjeffrey]

yup, i was having the same problem and i got alot of snails and it was the best purchase for the tank so far.

[GeoJoe]

sea cucumbers also do a great job at cleaning.. and get fat!

[tkjeffrey]

are the cukes very hardy? always wanted one but didnt want it to die and pollute my tank.

[Reefdude5]

Choose carefully!

[Paradox]

whats the best type of cucumber to get for aesthetics/cleaning? Im afraid of them dying in the rocks and polluting everything though.

D>

[Reefdude5]

The ugliest one's are safer!

[Casey]

Originally posted by Reefdude5
The ugliest one's are safer!

Affirmative