sand turning purple? normal or no??

[OscarFan76]

Gfo removes phosphate. 10 hours should be good.

Good luck.

 

[CorallineAlgae]

Gfo removes phosphate. 10 hours should be good.

Good luck.

I agree. 10 hours is a very popular photoperiod for good reasons.

 

[tchampion]

Corraline doesn't normally grow in the Substrate like that. In my experience, this is Cyanobacteria or Red Slime. You almost always see this in areas of weak or no flow. I would remove it, adjust your power heads, and check your Nitrate and Phosphate levels as a precaution. I have small frags of Xenia's that I move around from time to time to see where my flow is weak and strong. If you have anything that moves well with water current of flow, place it in that precise spot and see if you get any movement. Worst case is that you might need another Power head or maybe move some of your Live Rock around so that you get flow to this area. Be careful though, moving LR means that you might stop the flow to another area.

 

[RedLeggedHermit]

there is lots of flow there. before the cyano started growing the flow would always kick up a few grains of sand and blow them on to the LR. so i cant point it any lower or it will just be mixing the sand into the water and all over the corals and rock. and its not just a patch. its covering a good portion of my sand bed and one of the rocks now. going to take a sample of the water to my LFS for testing tomorrow.

 

[CorallineAlgae]

It's cyano. The best way to deal with it is to only use RO water for changes and top off, use some GFO somewhere in your filtration (like in a reactor or simply in a media bag). You could also try Chemi-Pure Elite which has GFO mixed with carbon. You'll want to test for phosphates and keep them as close to zero as you can.

Some foods, or to much of any food can feed it's growth. Tap water will make it worse.