Sandbed

[Ronald Marcelo]

Hi there, can someone help me identify these colors in my sandbed? Thanks in advance.

 

[wildroseofky]

It looks like you have some blue green algae (green stuff), diatoms (brown stuff), and some organic material breakdown (black stuff). Try stirring the sand to get rid of the black stuff. The diatoms will go away after a while. They eat silicates in the sand. Once the silicates are gone the diatoms will leave. The blue green algae is harder to deal with. It is not actually an algae but a bacteria, Cyanobacteria to be exact. The only way I got rid of it was with erythromycin an antibiotic. It will not hurt your filter bacteria. It only works on gram negative bacteria and filter bacteria is gram positive. Be sure to clean up the dead bba or it will cause a spike in you ammonia from the decaying material.

 

[melosu58]

I defintitely would not stir up the sand. Then you`ll release all that in your tank. This is just the fortunes of war when you have a deep sand bed. Read these

DeepSandBeds

How Sandbeds REALLY Work by Ronald L. Shimek, Ph.D. - Reefkeeping.com

 

[Ronald Marcelo]

Thanks! Great reads... I have to read it several times lol. I have a sand sifting starfish, does this hurt or help more? I have read that it kills all cyanobacteria and can kill an entire live sandbed in 2 months? I purchased it at the recommendation of a co worker. he thought it would be good to sift my sand a bit, made sense at the time. I'm aware that the DSB is murder... My wrasse and star love it!

I have read and received advice to stir it before so no worries there. I have read that the red cyanobacteria is good and the green is no good? Have to do more research. Thanks again on the sandbed links.