Dirty sandbed

[fireguy98]

So tank is one year old been very stable for the entire year no issues till last week. My sand bed has started to get patches of what I think are diatoms. Lights are 2months old I run two bags of chemi pure elite. Parameters are cal 450 kh 9 mg 1350 nitrate 0 nitrites 0 po not detected. Sal 1.026 temp stable 80. Water changes water made with rodi unit tds 0. So what gives why now am I having this issue and what can I do to correct the issue. I attached a pic of one of the patches. I just did my 15% water change today.

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[Northernseacorals]

You think there is a possibility the flow could be a touch low in that area?

Also could try to vacuum a test patch of the sand to see how quickly the colour comes back, if at all, I find testing this out will let you know if it's algae or something else, diatoms kinda grow in one direction favourably ( almost as if going somewhere ) algae will just grow every direction.

[fireguy98]

Flow is good no dead spots. Two mp10 in a 65 gallon. I vacuumed the sand bed today and the colour returned in a matter of hours.

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[Northernseacorals]

Originally Posted by fireguy98

Flow is good no dead spots. Two mp10 in a 65 gallon. I vacuumed the sand bed today and the colour returned in a matter of hours.

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Add a new new corals with disc's on the bottom ?

Just trying to rule out silica contamination.

[fireguy98]

No new coral with a disk.

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[Northernseacorals]

Only other thing I can think of is perhaps some old media in the sump, or expired/bad test kit.

Another test you can do to determine if it's diatoms is to vacuum all of them off the sand bed you can possibly see, and in the morning test again for nitrates and you should register something, the diatoms consume the nitrates, if you remove them you should be able to detect some nitrates.

[fireguy98]

Okay I'll try that thanks.

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[FitoPharmer]

What is in the tank livestock wise? What is your clean up crew like?
Seems pretty normal if it stays in small patches. Normally something will start to eat it and create a balance in the tank. From that picture it couldn't it also be thin cyanobacteria? I have seen cyano grow in places where it really shouldn't.

[fireguy98]

Tank is medium bio load clean up crew could use a touch up. I was wondering about cyno but wasn't sure cause I've never had it. If it is cyno how do I deal with it. I'm running chemi pure elite changed it out 2 weeks ago.

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[FitoPharmer]

Cyano is best dealt with by Chemiclean Red Slime remover IMO. But cyano has been in many of my tanks without me needing to use this. I used it once when I just could not control a outbreak. Followed the directions, worked great, reef safe with clams. IMO just wait and see if it becomes more of a problem. Also something like an orange lipped conch is an indispensable member of the sand bed CUC. It will seek and destroy all dark spots 24/7/365 .