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Old 02-20-2003, 05:36 AM
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Default Brown sand and Bubbles

hello I have a questions ? Our sand bed is turnning brown And it has air bubbles on it . (a) are the bubbles Nitrate ? (B) is the brown stuff an algee? :shock:
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Old 02-20-2003, 06:25 AM
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B) The brown stuff is probably diatoms. They are common in newer setps; generally they disappear after a little while.

A) If your setup is fairly new the bubbles are likely oxygen. Established tanks with a good sand bed will also release nitrogen bubbles reduced from nitrate.
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Old 02-20-2003, 06:42 AM
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ron101 thank you for your reply Should I stir the sand bed or leave it alone ?
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Old 02-20-2003, 06:45 AM
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Never disturb the sand unless you really like the look of this stuff...

Can you share more about the tank?
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Old 02-20-2003, 07:54 PM
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Because of the presence of air bubbles I would suggest you have Cyano (slime algae) The color is probably reddish brown. Cyanobacter can take on many colors including black.
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Old 02-20-2003, 09:07 PM
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Didn't Tony have brown bubbly slime recently? Some kind of Dinoflaggelates? Yuck!! Or it could just be diatoms....I had bubbly diatoms when I first started. Good luck with that!! :shock:
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Old 02-21-2003, 02:46 AM
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The colour of this thing is nearly a rust colour. The 2 pictures were taken with 2 different settings on the camera.
1- with preset w/b to account for the blue colour from the light

2- set to auto colour for w/b


This is a 90 g tank and we've been running it since November. Here are the water parameters:
SG-1.025
pH-8.3
NO3-0
CA2-400
ALK- 1.94 meq/L; 5.4dKH
PO4-0
NH3-0
NO2-0
Hope this information helps. Thanks!
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Old 02-21-2003, 03:01 AM
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Hey Jeanna

You sure about that alk reading...looks really low :?

Looks like diatoms to me.
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Old 02-21-2003, 03:05 AM
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Yeah Em, it did look low to me.. The hubby took the readings. We are using Seachem "Reef Builder Raises Carbonates" to combat this.
AFAIK, the readings should be at 3-4 meq/9-12 dKH, correct?
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Old 02-21-2003, 03:07 AM
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Jeanna, what kind of kit are you using for the PO4 test?

looks like diatoms to me, i just had them a while ago and they turned into cyno... now both are gone and i am left with a turf algae

Steve
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