Purging sand

[asylumdown]

Yah I've got 5 fighting conches, they're pretty awesome at keeping any sort of macro algae at bay, but they won't touch dinos or cyano. I've pretty much only got 3 kinds of algae in my tank - cyano, dinos, and this small vine like plant with teeny tiny little serrated leaves that only grows in between corals where my tang and rabbit fish can't reach.The cyano recently has been getting a little out of hand and it's starting to drive me batty, which is why I thought I'd try fluidizing the sand to get as much garbage out of it as I could. It doesn't seem to harm any of the sand dwelling life, within an hour of doing it I can see the burrows of tiny worms starting to form again, and it sure makes the sand look cleaner, just not sure what it's doing biochemically...

[Leah]

I always siphon my sand whenever I do a water change. I like my sand bed white.

[Slyguy00]

Originally Posted by Leah

I always siphon my sand whenever I do a water change. I like my sand bed white.

+1. I always syphon my sand and keep it white. Usually have no issues at all. Except the last time i did it. I did an extra good syphoning and it appears to have disrupted something because i have a thin brown layer forming on sand. Not sure why though. Perhaps started a mini cycle by disrupting to much at once?

[FishyFishy!]

Hey adam, this is a cool read on sand. It's a long one, but it does a lot with the chemistry aspect of things.

http://www.reef-eden.net/DSBs.htm

My guess on the bubbles would be nitrogen.