Removing all sand in 0ne shot

[Ghxst]

Awesome, thank you Thunder. I wasn't sure if there was some must have bacteria or critters I was lacking. I think I have active but just dirty sand. Can I clean the old sand when I remove it or is it best to trash it? When you say add sand, do you think I can push my sand 3-6 inch over and fill with new stuff to start populating eventual replacement sand with fauna? I don't have much room to put a bucket in but at the same time I don't want to agitate the tank any more. I'll go as slow as I need. I'm ashamed to post a pic of how bad it looks right now.

I watch my worms at night, there creeptacular poop cleaners. last week they were mating in my tank. I was shocked to see the tan and blue sex cells swimming around I thought something terrible was going on. I filmed for 20 seconds, maybe I should post it for worm propagation techniques lol.

 

[Ghxst]

So i looked at the logs and my notes. I have found some issues in correlation to me trying to correct some issues. Like replacing the mp40 with a wp10, I didnt think of stuff like that so I am going to try and get things squared away. Would temp going from 78 at night to 81 during the day cause algae issues?

 

[SynDen]

Thats about a normal temp swing, about what mine does daily in the summer time.

 

[Ghxst]

I asked about the temp because it looks like every summer for the past 3 years I get an algae bloom. The past ones were here and gone but this one is sticking. Wow keep logs and pics has really open my eyes!! I really appreciate everyones help here and am going to finally make a tank build thread.

 

[SkyDiv3r17]

My tank swings from about 76 to 80 during the day. I've never had any bad outbreaks of algae. Imo, it depends on what you keep in your refugium how much you feed, and your clean up crew.

Also do you have filter socks on your set up? When I moved tanks and there was crap everywhere, I put my overflow on the bottum across from the overflows, and pointed them towards the overflow with the socks in it. It helped a looooot.

Oh and use a turkey baster to blast out detritus from rocks just before a water change to help.

 

[Ghxst]

Live rock bottom is definitely a pooptrap but I don't see why a mix substrate would be anymore than sand alone or cc alone would be

I was thinking about large crushed coral and had bad experiences with it holding a lot of gunk. I didn't think about using a larger grain of sand. I will have to see what size I have now.

 

[Ghxst]

I have a read sea max, theres no fuge or sump. I have a back compartment with a light, cheato, media basket, ato and skimmer. I baste too When I changed the water today I used some filter material and it as dark green.

 

[Ghxst]

How much would hairspray screw around with the system if there was residue in my "clean buckets" ? The things we find when we look and ask.....

 

[SkyShark]

How much would hairspray screw around with the system if there was residue in my "clean buckets" ? The things we find when we look and ask.....

Take a look at the ingredients and see if anything jumps out at you as potentially harmful and do a little research.
When I was a kid with a freshwater tank my mom used my bucket to clean something with bleach. After the next water change I did, all my fish died. Needless to say, it's a lesson I've always remembered and I only use things that have been dedicated to the tanks.
Good luck!

 

[Ghxst]

[attachment=67786:name]Hydroflurocarbons and a bunch of other junk that can mess up my water. Apparently she liked to use the mirror in there and I might have gotten some cross contamination in my water only buckets. Lesson learned and I will be changing up my routine to include rinsing buckets before any use. I dont think it was the only thing, changing out my skimmer I found the back chamber was a detritus can! Here is a pic from tonight, the hair algae is receding and I am not getting as many diatoms!!!

 

[Ghxst]

So I have new sand now, I think its safe to say I am a little low in the tank. Is it best to add sand in a sac in the filter area to get it live or just slowly add new substrate in? I'm up for new ideas, what I read seems scattered.

 

[SkyDiv3r17]

I added about a nice cereal bowls worth of sand to the corner of my tank about every 3 days. I didn't have to do anything else though cause my diamond goby would spread/move it all around for me in that time period.

 

[Ghxst]

Did that amount cause any type of cycle? I would go that route easily, I just want to make sure I am not doing something in a nano that will cause any issues.

 

[SkyDiv3r17]

I've been told you don't want to cover your old Sand with a lot of new sand because the bacteria now in the dark will die. So the slower you add it the better imo. And nope, no changes at all!

Btw the cereal bowl size was for my 75 gallon. If you have a smaller tank I would use a smaller amount, maybe like 1 to 2 cofffee cups full depending on your size tank.

 

[Ghxst]

Thanks! I will add a little at a time and see what happens.