problem with dirty sand

[darron863]

i have a 75 gal reef with 125 lbs. of live rock with plenty of water flow had
a bout with ich a few mounts ago and now my sand is almost covered with a brownish colored algae my aquarium store guy came over and looked at it and said some tanks just go through it some times and i was wanting a second opinion oh yeah my tank has been set up about 2 years

 

[roka64]

WELCOME TO AA!!!

It sounds like a diatom bloom. What did you do with your fish?
Can you get a pic?

 

[melosu58]

It just sounds like a diatom bloom. A good sand sifting goby will keep your sand clean. I`m going to move this to SW aquaria forum.

 

[darron863]

I TREATED WITH KICK ICH AND ICH WAS GONE IN A FEW DAYS NEVER LOST ANY CORAL THANK GOD

 

[Ziggy953]

Have you recently changed salt mixes?

 

[melosu58]

Ick will not effect corals. They must have a fish host. Also when you type with all capital letters it means you are yelling or shouting.

 

[darron863]

No I have not but my salt pre mixed from my fish store guy and I asked him if he had
changed he told me no (I trust him i have been going to him for a while). I know ich will not hurt coral but I have heard of people loosing corals and inverts to treatment of ich in a reef tank. Sorry about the caps Did not know the Caps lock was on

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Most likely, those people treated the ick using copper or hyposalinity in their main tank. The copper will do in corals/inverts, and the hypo if done correctly probably will also. I'd keep an eye on your fish to make sure the ich doesn't reappear. Seems like any remedies other than copper/hypo are kind of hit and miss as to their effectiveness. Ich will drop off the fish and appear to go away, even without meds - so just be vigilant.

Regarding the possible diatom bloom, have you changed lights recently? Seems like when lights get old and they shift their light spectrum, some folks can have algae issues. Same goes when they just replace them too!

 

[melosu58]

I know ich will not hurt coral but I have heard of people loosing corals and inverts to treatment of ich in a reef tank.

I misunderstood you. I see you mean will the treatment of ick harm corals. OK sorry about that. Most of the reef safe treatments out today do not harm corals but they dont get rid of ick either. You stated earlier that your ick was gone in a few days. What happens is the the ick falls off the fish and over 200 tomites come from each one and the cycle starts all over. Here is some good reading on ick.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-10/sp/feature/index.php

 

[darron863]

I had a ballast go out about the same time but no I havnt changed lights i have current 65x4 (about a year and a half old)



Thanks for the links I havnt had a problem with ich after the one time and it wasnt really a out break i bought a purple tang and about two days later i noticed it and removed him to a quarantine tank he didnt make it but i treated my tank any way just to be safe but the main reason i mentioned ich was i couldnt run the skimmer for a while and i know that it should have a effect on the tank i was just putting the info out there cause that was around the time i got the algae on the sand