Help

[vince420]

What is on my sand & how to get rid of it

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[bmarine]

It may just be an algae growing. My pool filter sand will get that every once and awhile, and just do WCs and stir up the sand and its fine.

 

[coltonwsmith]

Is it a newly set up tank?
Looks to be diatoms. Feed mostly off silicates and phosphates in new sand. They'll die off once they've consumed all their nutrients. Don't fret over them.

 

[vince420]

Thanks tank is about 3 months old

 

[coltonwsmith]

Did you happen to top off the tank or do a water change with water that was not passed through a reverse osmosis unit?

Or, if the stand was stirred, nutrients could of been brought up to the top.

 

[vince420]

Did you happen to top off the tank or do a water change with water that was not passed through a reverse osmosis unit?

Or, if the stand was stirred, nutrients could of been brought up to the top.

Was blowing rocks of the other day and yes I do use ro/di water from day 1 thanks

 

[Macscale]

They are diatoms. A common misconception in this hobby is that diatoms only appear in a new tank. Which isn't true. Whenever a new form of silicate enters the tank, Diatoms have a chance to grow.

Diatoms are small dinoflagellates with a brown shell that we see. They Don't Consume Phosphates. They consumes silicates. Mostly introduced into an aquarium through sand or in the silicon and glass. They eat the silicates and turn them into silica, which is put towards the brown shell that we see.

 

[vince420]

Thanks for all the help

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[Ingy]

Agree its diatoms. Most common in new systems with a fresh supply of free silica. Fortunately for us most silica is NOT consumable by diatoms.

As a comparison, we are a carbon based life form and all good food is as well. We consume carbons and we grow and make little ones. Diamonds are principally carbon. We cannot consume the carbon in diamonds no matter what we put on them. We can eat them and poop them but we will get nothing out of it except a doctors bill.

Most silicates we see are very tightly atomically bound structures. Glass, Quartz and silicon carbide are very very common, but, like diamonds, completely useless to the ugly brown diatoms.
Free silica that the diatoms consume are much more rare, except, sadly, in coral sand. Coral sand is a part of the silica circle that includes diatoms and corals. So new systems with a coral based media will almost always go thru a diatom bloom. Oh, still the sand and BOOM, new silica is made available for another bloom.