is my fuge bed crashing?

[malkore]

sorry for the poor photo, but I'm trying to show how the aragonite sand on the left side of the photo has turned charcoal/black, and you can still see the right side is a normal color.

this is all carib sea sand..no 'magic mud' or anything like that, and a few pieces of LR rubble.

is my bed crashing? should i drain my fuge (which only has the LR rubble, sand, and some chaeto...maybe a few pods left) and clean it well, and then put it back with no sand, and just use it to grow macro algae to help on my NO3 and PO4 levels?

I'm doing a water change, big cleaning tonight, and wanna knock this out at the same time for convenience factor.

 

[Fluff]

Black sand is a bad sign and I believe your suspicions are correct. I would remove it.

 

[melosu58]

One thing about it, It dont look good. Cant figure it out.

 

[MT79]

I would agree w/ the others- definitley doesn't look to healthy. I'd remove it carefully. I chose not to use sand in my fuge b/c I was scared of that happening. IMO having sand in there just adds one more place for detritus, etc. to accumulate.

 

[malkore]

Yeah, something was wrong. Pulled out the chaeto, and the bottom of it was black and smelly.
pulled the live rock...something stank.

I'd have to say it was likely anaerobic pockets, as some of the LR has black spots on it, and it stinks like rotting something. the sand was really bad once I disturbed it.

I'm letting it set out overnight to completely die off so I can scrub it tomorrow (hot water only), plus i ran outta w/c water, so I'm making another 5gals to refill it tomorrow.

Interesting to note: my brown button polyps that have been sad looking for some time now...actually opened up fully and extended their tentacles! they haven't done that in ages, no matter what I tried to do to accommodate them.

hopefully this'll make the tank take a turn for the better.