Substrate causing problem?

Sentari

Sentari

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Hi all

Okay so i thought about this long and hard.

I have been struggling with a GHA problem for far too long now.

I have done everything. From cooking rocks to changing lights to almost everything.

My last resort is to remove the substrate.

I have sugar fine crushed coral. Which i feel is fueling my GHA.

The reason i say this is because when i agitate the substrate there is HUGE dust storms that occur.

I started yesterday by removing some of the substrate and i'm going to continue to remove it until its all gone. I have also added a huge skimmer rated for double my systems volume.

I will run bare bottom until i can see a change in the rocks and the GHA. Hopefully this will start going away and i can continue with a better reefing journey. I can then also start updating my thread.

I am also moving rocks to the sump and "cooking" them there with no light etc and that should help alot. I will rotate the rocks slowly and see if this solves my problem also.

Will keep you updated.
 
Forgot to ask, what is (was) the depth of your substrate.

Playsand must be washed like 100 times. All the small lighter particles must be out, else the sand will always be blown up and you have smaller particles flying around. I got 2 Vortech pumps on one side, and I can see sand slowly shifting and blowing to the one side. That is over a week and not that big problem. Actually the cayno is gone in that area:). Any other substrate would do the same IMO. If you got the $$$, then aragonite is the Porche, but I have to be happy with my playsand and Mazda.
 
i experienced alot of teething problems with algaes by going with substrate and just persevered though it by implementing large water changes..+-300lt on my little 600lt system.. it did subsite as the substrate matured.. the maturation of the substrate took approximatley a year...

was the substrate you used out of an old tank? re-used substrate?

good luck
 
RiaanP said:
Forgot to ask, what is (was) the depth of your substrate.

Playsand must be washed like 100 times. All the small lighter particles must be out, else the sand will always be blown up and you have smaller particles flying around. I got 2 Vortech pumps on one side, and I can see sand slowly shifting and blowing to the one side. That is over a week and not that big problem. Actually the cayno is gone in that area:). Any other substrate would do the same IMO. If you got the $$$, then aragonite is the Porche, but I have to be happy with my playsand and Mazda.
Click to expand...

Ya i'm thinking of going with Aragonite depending if this solves my problem. Otherwise i might just mix the sugar fine crushed coral with playsand and clean that 1000 times and see how that goes. Dont know how much of a good idea that is thou.

It was about 1 - 2cm thick.

leslie hempel said:
i experienced alot of teething problems with algaes by going with substrate and just persevered though it by implementing large water changes..+-300lt on my little 600lt system.. it did subsite as the substrate matured.. the maturation of the substrate took approximatley a year...

was the substrate you used out of an old tank? re-used substrate?

good luck
Click to expand...

Mine was 1 - 2cm thick. I dont think maturity is the problem. My tank is a year and a half old. I think it just trapped tooo much. If you saw the water colour when i siphoned 1 / 3 of the sand. You would understand. It was DARK brown.
 
Did you try using a phosphate remover in the system?
I noticed my GHA start to diminish almost immediately once I started to run Antiphos.

Detritus in the sand is pretty much par for the coarse, sure a regular siphon routine will keep things in check.
You put new media in and its almost like starting up a new system.
 
If the substrate is heavy enough then why not vacuum it. I battle to vacuum my fiji pink as it is still too light and I just end up sucking it all up.
 
AfricaOffroad said:
Did you try using a phosphate remover in the system?
I noticed my GHA start to diminish almost immediately once I started to run Antiphos.

Detritus in the sand is pretty much par for the coarse, sure a regular siphon routine will keep things in check.
You put new media in and its almost like starting up a new system.
Click to expand...

No i havent tried to use phos remover yet. I'm either considering using NP Bio Pellets or Phos remover pretty soon.

Siphoning the sand with my rock work is not going to help. I have 2 caves and rocks all over the place.

mariusmeyer said:
If the substrate is heavy enough then why not vacuum it. I battle to vacuum my fiji pink as it is still too light and I just end up sucking it all up.
Click to expand...

Oh well lets see what happens and see if the problem is actually the sand. No harm in trying
 
Sentari, I had the exact same thing i had algae growing everywhere including the sugar fine argonite. i had scrubbed cooked lights the works. I also thought it was my substrate i was considering changing it to something more course. As a last resort i add a phospahte remover and about 4 weeks later it was all gone!
 
butcherman said:
Sentari, I had the exact same thing i had algae growing everywhere including the sugar fine argonite. i had scrubbed cooked lights the works. I also thought it was my substrate i was considering changing it to something more course. As a last resort i add a phospahte remover and about 4 weeks later it was all gone!
Click to expand...

What Phospahte remover do you use?
 
butcherman said:
Sentari, I had the exact same thing i had algae growing everywhere including the sugar fine argonite. i had scrubbed cooked lights the works. I also thought it was my substrate i was considering changing it to something more course. As a last resort i add a phospahte remover and about 4 weeks later it was all gone!
Click to expand...

Hmmm.... Everything keeps leaning towards phosphates thou.

Think i'm gonna do that and see how things go.

Thanks for the advice.
 
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