Sand stirring livestock causing bacteria and algae blooms

[brandon429]

All sands are prep rinsed in unlimited tap water, final rinse in ro to evacuate the rinse tap, that new sand will be cloudless

for your tank swap catch and hold the fish, keep them covered so they won’t jump out, and drain off 75% of your current tank water to just put back in on top of cleaned sand. This means you aren’t making 100% new water for the job you’re making about 25%

if you drain the current water all the way down for re use the last 25% will be full opaque clouding as the water level gets close to the sandbed so toss that water

nobody needs bacteria in a sandbed. theyre expendable it’s why bare bottom reefs or frag tanks work just fine without sand. That’s why fifty pages of tap rinsing produced great results not bad ones, we don’t need sandbed bacteria in reefing so blast rinse them away along with the silt.

 

[Karen00]

yes I did. The initial cloudiness from the sand lasted a day or so. The tank went for weeks with my livestock not causing any issues. Recently though they have, and I thought this was due to detritus accumulation (I was feeding 3 cubes of frozen a day to get my nutrients up!)

Are you still feeding that much? (Sorry if you mentioned this already). It's possible the nutrients are now feeding a bacterial bloom possibly caused by sand stirring but maybe on its own. Hopefully the experts have ideas. I am definitely following along because this could happen to any of us. Maybe dosing beneficial bacteria or a UV sterilizer (did you mention if you have one of these)? At least we can rule out sand being in the water column because there is no way CaribSea Live Sand will stay suspended.

 

[Dan_P]

I think the source of my bacteria blooms and green algae/phytoplankton may be attributed to my livestock turning over my sand bed.

The sand bed is about 2.5 inches deep.

Bacteria bloom:
I’ve had an ongoing bacteria bloom for about a month. It’s not bad but it also isn’t great. The water has been cloudy enough to start upsetting my LPS corals.

Green algae/phytoplankton:
I don’t know what it is. I think it’s more likely to be a bacteria due to its reproduction rate. When I clean the glass the build up of cells is heavy within an hour of cleaning. (Initially thought it was phytoplankton due to appearance on cleaning, see image below)

here’s what I’m dealing with

I think this is all due to constant sand stirring. My pistol shrimp puts in a serious shift everyday. I think he moves at least a quarter of the sand surface in a day. I also have a wrasse that hides several times a day, and my clownfish digs constantly. I also have a sand sifting starfish but I doubt he is churning up enough.

I have a cheato refugium which is on a 14hr reverse cycle and has doubled in size in the last 2 weeks. I don’t use a skimmer due to a previous low nutrient issue.

My nitrates test at 3ppm (Nyos and Salifert) and my phosphate at 0.02ppm (Hanna ULR)

I used to do a 10% weekly water change but have not done this for 3 weeks to increase my nutrients from 0 and 0 (N and P respectively)

The tank has been running for 3 months. However it was a transfer of an established system that had been running for 8 years. This tank was started with a new bag of live sand.

What would be a good move? I’ve been considering getting UV but surely I can do this with better husbandry?

When you have made as many changes as you have, I think it would be very difficult to blame any one thing on what you are seeing. You have a new system that might be unsightly for awhile.

 

[TastyScrants]

Are you still feeding that much? (Sorry if you mentioned this already). It's possible the nutrients are now feeding a bacterial bloom possibly caused by sand stirring but maybe on its own. Hopefully the experts have ideas. I am definitely following along because this could happen to any of us. Maybe dosing beneficial bacteria or a UV sterilizer (did you mention if you have one of these)? At least we can rule out sand being in the water column because there is no way CaribSea Live Sand will stay suspended.

No, once my nitrare started to increase I went back to 2 cubes a day. Hopefully now my refugium is really taking off I should see better control of my nutrient export.

I managed to get hold of a white bucket to check my water colour with, it’s green. I’ve been using GAC and changing it monthly. I think a UV steriliser will sort out this issue.

I agree it isn’t sand in the water column, but as Brandon pointed out it’s possibly the silt.

 

[TastyScrants]

When you have made as many changes as you have, I think it would be very difficult to blame any one thing on what you are seeing. You have a new system that might be unsightly for awhile.

Yes I agree I’ve changed a lot. I’ve always tried to do one thing at a time in order to identify a root cause, but unfortunately a few things have happened that have required corrective action.

 

[Placenta89]

I think the source of my bacteria blooms and green algae/phytoplankton may be attributed to my livestock turning over my sand bed.

The sand bed is about 2.5 inches deep.

Bacteria bloom:
I’ve had an ongoing bacteria bloom for about a month. It’s not bad but it also isn’t great. The water has been cloudy enough to start upsetting my LPS corals.

Green algae/phytoplankton:
I don’t know what it is. I think it’s more likely to be a bacteria due to its reproduction rate. When I clean the glass the build up of cells is heavy within an hour of cleaning. (Initially thought it was phytoplankton due to appearance on cleaning, see image below)

here’s what I’m dealing with

I think this is all due to constant sand stirring. My pistol shrimp puts in a serious shift everyday. I think he moves at least a quarter of the sand surface in a day. I also have a wrasse that hides several times a day, and my clownfish digs constantly. I also have a sand sifting starfish but I doubt he is churning up enough.

I have a cheato refugium which is on a 14hr reverse cycle and has doubled in size in the last 2 weeks. I don’t use a skimmer due to a previous low nutrient issue.

My nitrates test at 3ppm (Nyos and Salifert) and my phosphate at 0.02ppm (Hanna ULR)

I used to do a 10% weekly water change but have not done this for 3 weeks to increase my nutrients from 0 and 0 (N and P respectively)

The tank has been running for 3 months. However it was a transfer of an established system that had been running for 8 years. This tank was started with a new bag of live sand.

What would be a good move? I’ve been considering getting UV but surely I can do this with better husbandry?

I have the same issue with 0 nitrate and phosphate with very little filtration. I installed a uv sterilizer and the cloudiness went away granted I'm running a biocube 32 with their mini uv sterilizer. I haven't changed my water in about a month and I keep dosing nitrate and phosphate to get the levels I want and keep the coral color. I was over feeding as well to try and bounce up those levels but nothing. I keep getting green algae though but no cloudiness. Ended up getting and emerald crab and 7 Mexican turbo snails and they keep the tank quite clean now (almost all hair algae is gone) I just have to clean the glass every 3 days and replace my filter floss every 2. You might wanna try cutting back on the chaeto light schedule as well and see if your nitrate and phosphate bounce back

 

[TastyScrants]

Update:

I removed 50% of the sand by syphoning it directly out of the tank. Due to the size of the grain I was able to achieve this without much disruption to any settled detritus and silt.

I then did a 30% water change.

3 days later the water is crystal clear and the algae on the glass is receding. It does grow back quickly but it’s nowhere near as bad as it was.

I have measurable nitrate at 3ppm and phosphate at 0.05ppm. My chaeto is still growing like crazy.

I think I’m in a good place to monitor now and find balance.

I fully intend to remove the remaining sand and rinse clean for a few hours when it’s appropriate for me to do so.

I did order a UV steriliser, and on the morning of delivery is when the tank finally cleared. So I haven’t set it up yet, but I will configure it for some redundancy.