Nuisance red algae

[Wade]

I believe I've got an aragonite substrate bed of approximately 2-3 inches. I've not formed an attachment to the aragonite so I can add sand or crushed coral to it as needed. I know I've probably lost an inch of bed over the years of vacuuming that I've not replaced. A mixed bed would probably look pretty natural.

[Neon Reefer]

I know i'll catch some shrapnel for saying this; but, This is why I do not like utilizing sand in a reef tank. Too many problems especially as it ages. Yes I know the majority of people love it, need it, embrace it and all that stuff! But IME its too much work for such a fickle thing. Does it really look that great? It can but too many times it's just dirty looking. I'll take my my 1" of crushed Atlantic coral over it anyday. Once a week I stir the heck out of it and feed my corals with the cloud it makes, and I get a great feeding response from the coral. Cause what do corals eat in the wild? Bacteria, algae, and detritus, which is exactly whats in the CC. Cloud clears overnight and the next day i clean my filters. I vaccuum once a month as well. Hey I'm not in it for the swimmers and crawlers who need it, i'm in it for the coral!

What grain size do you use in your 1" sand bed?

Two years ago, Gerald Hesslinger, convinced me to get away from DSB and use a coarse aroggonite substrate. I use CaribSea "Florida Crushed Coral" at 2mm-5mm. This is the easiest method that I have used in 40 years of reef keeping.

Patrick

+1 Patrick on the ease of care. Recently i switched fromm Florida to Atlantic CC and I must say i like the consistancy of size and shape better (3- 5 mm). However it seems to perform much the same as the Florida CC. At a 1" depth it gives me good cover on the bottom and allows me to move it around easily for clening and feeding of coral. You can vaccuum the heck out of it and it won't end up in the bucket like sand. More people don't use it because it got a bad rap as a "Nitrate Factory". LOL Yes it does trap lots of detritus that will break down into Nitrates. However so will any mechanical filtration you have in your system. Stop cleaning your floss or sponge and see what happens. I consider this another beneficial type of filtration that must be cleaned regularly. I wouldn't try this w/ a deep sand bed, a shallow sand bed yes. Just a little harder to get the same results!.

[Wade]

What is classified as a deep sand bed?

[Sascha D.]

A Deep Sand Bed refers to the method of maintaining your sand and not so much the literal depth of the substrate. While it is true that a DSB doesn't technically exist when the substrate is below 4", the method of keeping the sand could still be used to a lesser degree. On the other hand, you could have 6" of sand and not have a DSB because the microfauna do not exist.

The DSB method is a form of natural reef keping that uses a sand bed of 4-6" required to maintain a proper habitat for microfauna. The little critters act as a form of biological filtration as they live and reproduce in the substrate. Sand that is sold as "live sand" is just sand with bacteria in it. A DSB is truly live sand.

[subsea]

Interesting definition of DSB as a methodology.

My 6" Jaubert Plenum using coarse Florida Crushed Coral that relies on bacteria to perform de-nitrification in a reducing enviroment of oxygen might be a hybrid DSB. In all of my systems, nitrate recycling and nitrate removal are the first consideration in long term system stability.

Patrick

[Sascha D.]

I may have gotten this article from Subsea at some point. It's a good read.

This is another one.

[subsea]

Good reads. It has been sometime since I read them. My 11 year old Jaubert Plenum is 4"-5" deep, but it is not a deep sand bed. Both Chuck and Dr Ron like to use diverse microfana. Because of the coarse grain size, worms and other micro fana do not inhabit the substrate of the Jauberst Plenum sand need.. Only in the top 1" do bristle worms and drawf ceriths act as detrivores. They are joined on the surface with small blue leg hermits as well as serpent & brittle stars.

The advantage of the corse grain size is an extended reducing oxygen gradient with large populations of faculative bacteria that are 100 times more efficient than sulphide bacteria at de-nitrification. The disadvantage is vulnability of substrate to getting loaded with detritus.

Thanks for the clarification on deep snd bed.

Patrick

[Wade]

So what's the recommendation for my sand bed? I'm going to do a hell of a vacuum on it on Thursday evening wand will most likely vacuum up a lot of my existing substrate. I think I like the idea of using the Florida CC which I think will be close to what I already have. I really don't know what I've got, but it looks like a really coarse sand. I do know it vacuums up fairly easy so I have to kinda bounce my vacuum tube to keep it from getting sucked out. The two pictures below are the same spot with the flash and without. Also, for water movement I have a wave box and a Vorthech. The Vortech is located about in the middle of the side glass. I also have the return line which isn't much on it's own. How close to the sandbed do you all usually place your powerheads and do have any pointing right at the sand to keep it stirred up? I've tried this and all I get is a pile of sand in one spot where there water flow is hitting it.

[subsea]

Similiar to CaribSea Special Reef Grade with a grain size between .1mm-1.0mm.

I reread this thread to better get the facts. With 2"-3" depth of aroggonite sand, I doubt that I would add anything. I would never vacum deeper than 1" unless you have decided to reduce the depth of your sandbed.

Patrick

PS. If you want to change over to crushed coral, I would vacuum all but 1/4" of present substrate and add 3/4" of crushed coral.

Edited July 24, 2013 by subsea

[Wade]

If I understand all that I've read here, as long as start giving it a good vacuum bi-weekly and stir it up once a week the day before my weekly water change, I should be ok sticking with what I have and I don't necessarily need to replace the substrate due to age? Is that correct? Should I vacuum it each week during my water change?

[Neon Reefer]

Well if you are going to pull the substrate out completely, there is only one correct way to do it all at once. And it takes some work with a 72 gal display. You would need to first remove all the water down to about 1" above the substrate and reserve in clean Igloo ice chests. Have another icechest full of premade sal twater. Begin to pull coral & rocks out of empty display and rinse in premade water then move to reserved tank water. Once all rocks and corals are out it is easy to remove all moving livestiock: IE fish and inverts and place with rock and corals in reserve water. Then remove remaining water and cubstrate and shop vac out the last bit and throw away. .Time to wipe down inside of display. Then replace your rock work and add your new very well rinsed (until it rinses clear) and drained Crushed Coral. Place 1" of CC around the bottom and around rock work (I prefer NOT to put under rocks) Then replace reserved water and moving live stock. You will probably come up about 20% short on water so have enough new premade saltwater temped and buffered like you would for a large water change and add to make up the difference. Turn on all equipment and make sure everything is working correctly. I like to add a bacterial suppliment like Start Smart for saltwater to boost bactyerial activity. You should get no cycle affect but it doesn't hurt to utilize a little Prime as well to lock up any ammonia that could remotely occur. With some help and preperation you can accomplish this entire task in 2 hours time.

The slow method is once a week to remove by vaccuum 0.5 inch of substrate w/ weekly water changes until you get to the last 0.5 inch and leave the remaing sand as SubSea suggested and then add 0.5 inch of CC on top. This method although effective will not as effeciently remove all the old toxins held by the old substrate but it should remove most of it. It woulo then be safe to begin vaccuuming weekly or so the entire substrate down to the bottom, however this will pull out the remaining sand over time. replacing w/ all CC prevents the substrate from being vaccuumed out as it is too heavy.

And one final note. I would in no way begin stirring that old sand bed. I beleive that it is already saturated and leeching old toxins it has accumulated over time back into your water. Stirring it could severly upset your water chemistry. Either remove it as suggusted or leave it alone and deal w/ the effects. .

If you have any questions you can PM me.

[subsea]

If I understand all that I've read here, as long as start giving it a good vacuum bi-weekly and stir it up once a week the day before my weekly water change, I should be ok sticking with what I have and I don't necessarily need to replace the substrate due to age? Is that correct? Should I vacuum it each week during my water change?

Yes vacuum it each week during water change. You are correct with your new sand bed maintenance. I would think that the bi-weekly vacuum should be discontinued after a month. Consider the substrate vacuum discharge as an enhanced nutrient export over just a partial water change. I have had the same substrate in my Jaubert Plenum for 11 years. My maintenance has suffered in the last two years with all the expansion of aquaculture here at the facility and I am dealing with cyno at this time. Cyno bacteria are part of the ecosystem that keeps things in check. It is the most accurate advance bioindicator for phosphate in our marine aquariums. Timfish posted a thread about cynobacteria within the coral mass that fixed nitrogen to feed the coral. In an article written by Randy Holmes about phosphate, he identified cynobacteria producing enzymes that release bound organic phosphate to be assimilated into cyno biomass. He further identified a feedback control look which regulated enzyme action. Imagine that, Smart Bugs.

Wade,

You have got grit. Stick with it. You have already and will continue to be rewarded. You are an accomplished finished carpenter. Very nice job on your stand and canopy.

Lassez la bonne temps roulez,

Patrick

[(Bio)³]

Careful you don't pull too much sand at once then add fresh and cause a cycle. I'd try and do half then half to avoid cycle issues that can come from swapping rock or sand in a system. Nothing good comes from doing things too fast in the hobby, slow and steady usually wins the race.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4

[Wade]

I think this may be the best time to replace the substrate. I'm just starting to add coral frags to the system and have little stock. Taking into consideration that the substrate is roughly 10 years old and will most likely need to be replaced, it seems prudent to do it now. A large undertaking, but certainly doable. I guess I'll tackle that following vacation. Everyone seems to have different sandbed thicknesses, but it looks like anything from 1" - 3" would be fine.

[Planeden]

I think this may be the best time to replace the substrate. I'm just starting to add coral frags to the system and have little stock. Taking into consideration that the substrate is roughly 10 years old and will most likely need to be replaced, it seems prudent to do it now. A large undertaking, but certainly doable. I guess I'll tackle that following vacation. Everyone seems to have different sandbed thicknesses, but it looks like anything from 1" - 3" would be fine.

for what it's worth, i've heard that 0 - 1" is good and 3" - more" is good. but between 1" and 3" you lose the advantages of the shallow and deep sandbeds, but get the disadvantages of both. but i think i just read that on the internet, and you know how reliable the internet is. yes, i just posted this on the internet, i know.

ps: subsea has a thread on here about two similar setups with a 1" bed and a 2" bed. the 2" bed gave him problems, but i don't recall the conclusions of his experiment. you may want to look that one up. may be the "Tale of two tanks" thread but it may not be.

[Wade]

Is there a tool available to calculate how much subsrate you need to purchase bacsed on your tank size/type and the depth of the bed you want? Say I want to go with 2" of CC (or sand) for my 72g bowfront? If I choose to go with sand, should I get live sand since I'm replacing it all at once?

[Planeden]

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_educationcenter_calculators_sand_bed_calculator.html

this one seems ok, but i don't know anything about it.

[Sascha D.]

http://reefcentral.com/index.php/sand-bed-calculator

[Wade]

I don't suppose it really matters to me as long as it looks good and is functioning. 1" would probably come right up to the edge of the tank frame, but not over it which would also be good since algae sometimes grows along that edge and is hard to get to.

[subsea]

Because of the large grain size 1" is easily flushed of detritus to feed corals and clean bed. Deeper than 1" is prone to get plugged up.

I somewhat disagree that dsb without diverse micro fauna is not a functioning dsb. The reason for depth is to produce reducing oxygen conditions. Consider the reasons for dsb, to export nitrate. Whatever grain size it takes with depth to produce decreasing oxygen along with de-nitrifying bacteria is the point of dsb. Diverse micro fana and fauna perform nutrient exchange by creating complex food webs which perform nutrient recycling. The above sceanario requires reef keeper to pay attention to his reef and maintain his sandbed.

I would suggest that a 1" substrate will require about 80 lbs. This 80 lbs will perform the denitrification(amonia to nitrite to nitrate) of 200 lbs of live rock. Partial water change will remove nitrate and phosphate accumulated by detritus in substrate.

Go for the gusto,

Patrick

[chippwalters]

FWIW, I replaced my substrate with this:

While not as pretty, it never clumped or became hard. It also has turned pink with coralline really fast. I spent too much time on algae issues on my previous tank. So, I started over (you can check out my thread).

Also, I use a cryptic sump (no light, just rubble), and my own Purigen reactor, and a UV sterilizer and I have zero algae issues whatsoever these days. I have to say the UV sterilizer has been superb for me in keeping down algae-- though I'm using purified rainwater for my salt and freshwater mixes.

You can get this substrate at Fishy Business here in town.

Edited July 25, 2013 by chippwalters

[subsea]

FWIW, I replaced my substrate with this:

While not as pretty, it never clumped or became hard. It also has turned pink with coralline really fast. I spent too much time on algae issues on my previous tank. So, I started over (you can check out my thread).

Also, I use a cryptic sump (no light, just rubble), and my own Purigen reactor, and a UV sterilizer and I have zero algae issues whatsoever these days. I have to say the UV sterilizer has been superb for me in keeping down algae-- though I'm using purified rainwater for my salt and freshwater mixes.

You can get this substrate at Fishy Business here in town.

Chipp, I have removed macro from my mud/macro refugium and replaced with rock loaded with pods. With light removed I have reduced my temperature down to 81.0 degrees. The UV sterilizer is the next addittion. Also ordered Build My LED sticks to use on turn key tanks.

Patrick

[Wade]

This?: http://www.marinedepot.com/CaribSea_Florida_Crushed_Coral_Geo_Marine_Formula_Dry_Sand_for_Saltwater_Reef_Aquariums-CaribSea-CS0110-FISSDS-vi.html

Edited July 25, 2013 by Wade

[chippwalters]

Nope. It's dry. I use less than an inch. Frankly , I'm not even sure how you can use live sand. Seems to me keeping it in a bag out in the open is going to create more dead stuff then live stuff which then has a whole other set of problems.

If you are going to replace your existing substrate, then do it slowly. That way you won't have a big problem with algae bloom.

[(Bio)³]

This?: http://www.marinedepot.com/CaribSea_Florida_Crushed_Coral_Geo_Marine_Formula_Dry_Sand_for_Saltwater_Reef_Aquariums-CaribSea-CS0110-FISSDS-vi.html

that looks to be the exact same as what chipp photo'd