secrets to keeping a nice white sand bed!

george1098 · 05/12/2006, 03:06 PM

hi guys
so i love nice white sand beds that just flick the light right back up from powerfull MH lanps (who doesn't?). what are the secrets to keeping a sand bed nice and white so the tank looks bran new?
lets see your white sand beds in mature tanks (lets say 1 year plus)

thanks guys

IanInDC · 05/12/2006, 03:24 PM

OH, where are the experts now? This is a universal question!!

MCary · 05/12/2006, 04:03 PM

Photoshop.

akbuuur · 05/12/2006, 04:05 PM

AHHA i think some sand sifters would help?

Gooli · 05/12/2006, 04:06 PM

my tank is over a year old and the sand is always white.
here's why:

1. make sure u got good flow - that's a given

2. nassarius snails - the big ones - not the tiny 1/2" ones - i got about 20 in my 90g

3. i also have 2 sand sifting stars (yeah, i know about the eating infauna thing - but i've had them for 1 1/2" years and no problems)

akbuuur · 05/12/2006, 04:08 PM

infauna? whats that?(i feel noobish)

Gooli · 05/12/2006, 04:10 PM

infauna is all the life in the sandbed - micro organisms and such

akbuuur · 05/12/2006, 04:16 PM

ahh cool, im gonna set up a fuge soon so that shouldnt be a problem anyway, do you have any experiance with fiji or miricale mud?

Gooli · 05/12/2006, 04:19 PM

no...i have no mud experience.

Chicago · 05/12/2006, 04:23 PM

i think on smaller tanks it is easier to keep the white sand. it needs to be turned over ocassionally. if you have larger ruble. it will grow coraline. if you have suger sand the detritus turns it a little grey.

it would be nice to hear that someone i with a large tank over lets say at least 100 gallons has white sand and has nver had to touch the sand in months but yet it is pure white.

then lets ask him or her to tell us the secret.

Randall_James · 05/12/2006, 04:24 PM

Only time mine stays pristine white is when nothing is alive in the sand. My large tank has white areas, but the sand is usually all clumped together and although white, un-usable by anything in the tank.

IanInDC · 05/15/2006, 07:17 AM

akbuuur, I use miracle mud and I think it really helps algae growth in my fuge... but that includes cyano, unfortunately. I haven't figured out the ideal way to use the nutrient rich environment of the mud without tipping over into the cyano zone.

Just a word of caution.

Anemonebuff · 05/15/2006, 07:28 AM

Miracle mud is just that...mud. I would suggest reglar fine aragonite sand instead.

Aggressive skimming, good water motion and a good cleanup crew all help.

My sand stays pretty white, but it does get some brown patches here and there.

iCam · 05/15/2006, 07:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by IanInDC
akbuuur, I use miracle mud and I think it really helps algae growth in my fuge... but that includes cyano, unfortunately. I haven't figured out the ideal way to use the nutrient rich environment of the mud without tipping over into the cyano zone.

Just a word of caution.

IanInDC, here is a Miracle Mud analysis just for some reading:
Miracle Mud

Anemonebuff · 05/15/2006, 07:29 AM

I grow turtle grass in my sandbed.

LazyD · 05/15/2006, 08:58 AM

My diamond goby keeps it sparkly white as well as my clean up crew, he just skims above the sand taking in nice mouthfuls of sand and spitting it back out

cpage3 · 05/15/2006, 09:00 AM

I have white sand in my 55 gallon tank that has been up for three yrs. My sandbed does not serve any functional purpose in my tank the filtration is taken on by the LR in my sump and display (+protein skimmer), but I have been wanting white sand in my tank since the beginning, it is finally here. Here was my plan of action:

For a while now I have been keeping my sand only 1/2-1 inch deep, because i dont like the look of deep sand beds at all. However I do like the look of white sand. So for along time i had brown sand and was not pleased with it.

This is when i decided to just suck up the sand (small amount compared to normal deep sand beds) when it got too dirty. The trick here was not to be completely thorough but to get as much as I could in a reasonable amount of time and a 5 gallon bucket of waste water. Then i would just replace the siphoned sand.

This did two things it removed a very high amount of fish waste and the replaced white sand sparkled. After a while this became habit to me (about every 1 to 2 weeks) and took as long as normal water changes had taken for me in the past. Many times I would rinse the waste sand thoroughly and reuse it.

The only other thing that i think contributed to this is that once every month and a half to 2 months I would clean my sump out sucking up all the detritus that had accumulated (and trust me there was alot) in place of my normal sand replacing procedure.

After about 2 months of doing this I noticed my sand was staying whiter longer and now (about a year later) the only thing that discolors my sand is when detritus and fish waste accumulate in it (turns it a greyish color). This is fixed by just siphoning up the detritus like in a routine water change (for me at least). So as of now I donot usually siphon my sand up and IT STAYS WHITE! Once in a while I will siphon up my sand because I saw the extreme benefit it produces.

I want to make things clear, I am not a nutrient free freak. I by all stretches of the imagination have nutrients and holdfast to the idea that some nutrients are beneficial for coral growth. I still have algae growing on the glass (diatoms, and even a touch of cyano), but it does not grow on the sand. To test whether this was true or not I let my tank go with out water changes for probably about a month and a half and by the end of this period the sand was only discolored by accumulation of grey detritus like stated above.

So there is what worked for me hope it helps

regards
~CAP~

Madoktopus · 05/15/2006, 09:17 AM

The best way to keep sand white is to periodically replace some of it. Only way i ever found that worked efficiently.

ACBlinky · 05/15/2006, 10:58 AM

The sugar-sized Aragonite in my 30g is as white as the day I put it in, but there's a catch. I have a pistol shrimp, and while he's fantastic at turning the sand over, he has a tendancy to put it wherever he wants so I end up with nice while piles of sand and areas where the tank is BB

Here's a pic from a few days ago.

six.line · 05/15/2006, 12:02 PM

I can't believe only one person mentioned a sand sifting goby. The orange diamond back gobies are fantastic at keeping your sand clean.

Travis L. Stevens · 05/15/2006, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by gooliver
infauna is all the life in the sandbed - micro organisms and such

Actually, that's Fauna (Animal Life). The "opposite" of Flora (Plant Life)

reefnewbie54321 · 05/15/2006, 12:42 PM

Sand sifting gobies and sand sifting stars will keep your bed nice and white but its only white becuase its no longer live sand, Gobies and Stars both eat fauna (the stuff that makes you bed alive)

nassarius snails
flow across bed
and detrius eating sand bed cleaners

I am going to make a 1 x 48 x 5"tall epoxy sandbed and put it the front of my display and then fill in sand around it so when viewing the tank you see a nice white sandbed but from the sides I can still view nitrogen exchange and moniter sulphide buildup ect. The hard part will be to give it that wavy look that most sandbeds have and not just a flat strip.

six.line · 05/15/2006, 12:56 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought it was primarily the bacteria that you needed in the sand to keep it alive. Surely the gobies don't eat that?

I know a guy who's got an old school 75 gallon with VHOs, and a sand sifting goby. His sandbed is spotless, and yet his tank is firmly established, healthy, and beautiful.

kenny77 · 05/15/2006, 02:08 PM

there are 2 way that I know, having a cleaning crew or siphoning

nassarius snails and sandsifting star are a good choice for natural cleaning, but if you have time and some extra bag of fine aragonite sand do what I did. I try to siphon as close from the sand but with out siphoning the sand. ofcourse there were some sand that end up in the bucket. well after siphoning everything that I didn't like (pup). I let the sand and the !@#$ settle down in the bucket, I then siphon back the water and leave about 2-3" of water in teh bucket. then I just add a couple of cups of new sand on tp of the one I siphon. but just a couple, no more than a 1/8" over the old sand

Anemonebuff · 05/15/2006, 02:27 PM

Cucumbers and fighting conchs are good too.

05/12/2006, 03:06 PM	#1
george1098 Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Halifax NS Canada Posts: 1,336	secrets to keeping a nice white sand bed! hi guys so i love nice white sand beds that just flick the light right back up from powerfull MH lanps (who doesn't?). what are the secrets to keeping a sand bed nice and white so the tank looks bran new? lets see your white sand beds in mature tanks (lets say 1 year plus) thanks guys __________________ I'm not as think as you stupid i am Current Tank Info: None at the moment

05/12/2006, 03:24 PM	#2
IanInDC Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Washington, DC Posts: 268	OH, where are the experts now? This is a universal question!! __________________ "Walk the bridges before you burn them down..." --eddie vedder Current Tank Info: 29 gal softies/LPS

05/12/2006, 04:06 PM	#5
Gooli Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: West Los Angeles Posts: 3,746	my tank is over a year old and the sand is always white. here's why: 1. make sure u got good flow - that's a given 2. nassarius snails - the big ones - not the tiny 1/2" ones - i got about 20 in my 90g 3. i also have 2 sand sifting stars (yeah, i know about the eating infauna thing - but i've had them for 1 1/2" years and no problems) __________________ "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. " - Benjamin Franklin Current Tank Info: 180g SPS

05/12/2006, 04:10 PM	#7
Gooli Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: West Los Angeles Posts: 3,746	infauna is all the life in the sandbed - micro organisms and such __________________ "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. " - Benjamin Franklin Current Tank Info: 180g SPS

05/12/2006, 04:19 PM	#9
Gooli Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: West Los Angeles Posts: 3,746	no...i have no mud experience. __________________ "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. " - Benjamin Franklin Current Tank Info: 180g SPS

05/12/2006, 04:03 PM	#3
MCary Premium Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Hardin, Montana Posts: 3,142	Photoshop.

05/12/2006, 04:05 PM	#4
akbuuur Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Columbia, Maryland Posts: 298	AHHA i think some sand sifters would help?

05/12/2006, 04:08 PM	#6
akbuuur Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Columbia, Maryland Posts: 298	infauna? whats that?(i feel noobish)

05/12/2006, 04:16 PM	#8
akbuuur Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Columbia, Maryland Posts: 298	ahh cool, im gonna set up a fuge soon so that shouldnt be a problem anyway, do you have any experiance with fiji or miricale mud?

05/12/2006, 04:23 PM	#10
Chicago Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: earth Posts: 3,218	i think on smaller tanks it is easier to keep the white sand. it needs to be turned over ocassionally. if you have larger ruble. it will grow coraline. if you have suger sand the detritus turns it a little grey. it would be nice to hear that someone i with a large tank over lets say at least 100 gallons has white sand and has nver had to touch the sand in months but yet it is pure white. then lets ask him or her to tell us the secret. __________________ "If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will" ..famous poet.. Current Tank Info: 500 gal starphire, reef sps dominated, 40 plus fish, 300 gallon sump in basement below, reeftek calcium reactor, reeftek kalkwasser reactor, lifeguard fluidized filter for rowaphose, 4 400MH 10k xm, 2 160 vho super attinic, DYI 50 gallon denitrator

05/12/2006, 04:24 PM	#11
Randall_James Premium Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 6,727	Only time mine stays pristine white is when nothing is alive in the sand. My large tank has white areas, but the sand is usually all clumped together and although white, un-usable by anything in the tank. __________________ "It's a dog eat dog world and I feel like I am wearing milkbone underwear"

05/15/2006, 07:17 AM	#12
IanInDC Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Washington, DC Posts: 268	akbuuur, I use miracle mud and I think it really helps algae growth in my fuge... but that includes cyano, unfortunately. I haven't figured out the ideal way to use the nutrient rich environment of the mud without tipping over into the cyano zone. Just a word of caution. __________________ "Walk the bridges before you burn them down..." --eddie vedder Current Tank Info: 29 gal softies/LPS

05/15/2006, 07:28 AM	#13
Anemonebuff Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: LI,NY Posts: 3,877	Miracle mud is just that...mud. I would suggest reglar fine aragonite sand instead. Aggressive skimming, good water motion and a good cleanup crew all help. My sand stays pretty white, but it does get some brown patches here and there.

05/15/2006, 07:29 AM	#15
Anemonebuff Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: LI,NY Posts: 3,877	I grow turtle grass in my sandbed.

05/15/2006, 08:58 AM	#16
LazyD Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Petaluma, CA Posts: 122	My diamond goby keeps it sparkly white as well as my clean up crew, he just skims above the sand taking in nice mouthfuls of sand and spitting it back out

05/15/2006, 09:00 AM	#17
cpage3 Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Lancaster, New York Posts: 414	I have white sand in my 55 gallon tank that has been up for three yrs. My sandbed does not serve any functional purpose in my tank the filtration is taken on by the LR in my sump and display (+protein skimmer), but I have been wanting white sand in my tank since the beginning, it is finally here. Here was my plan of action: For a while now I have been keeping my sand only 1/2-1 inch deep, because i dont like the look of deep sand beds at all. However I do like the look of white sand. So for along time i had brown sand and was not pleased with it. This is when i decided to just suck up the sand (small amount compared to normal deep sand beds) when it got too dirty. The trick here was not to be completely thorough but to get as much as I could in a reasonable amount of time and a 5 gallon bucket of waste water. Then i would just replace the siphoned sand. This did two things it removed a very high amount of fish waste and the replaced white sand sparkled. After a while this became habit to me (about every 1 to 2 weeks) and took as long as normal water changes had taken for me in the past. Many times I would rinse the waste sand thoroughly and reuse it. The only other thing that i think contributed to this is that once every month and a half to 2 months I would clean my sump out sucking up all the detritus that had accumulated (and trust me there was alot) in place of my normal sand replacing procedure. After about 2 months of doing this I noticed my sand was staying whiter longer and now (about a year later) the only thing that discolors my sand is when detritus and fish waste accumulate in it (turns it a greyish color). This is fixed by just siphoning up the detritus like in a routine water change (for me at least). So as of now I donot usually siphon my sand up and IT STAYS WHITE! Once in a while I will siphon up my sand because I saw the extreme benefit it produces. I want to make things clear, I am not a nutrient free freak. I by all stretches of the imagination have nutrients and holdfast to the idea that some nutrients are beneficial for coral growth. I still have algae growing on the glass (diatoms, and even a touch of cyano), but it does not grow on the sand. To test whether this was true or not I let my tank go with out water changes for probably about a month and a half and by the end of this period the sand was only discolored by accumulation of grey detritus like stated above. So there is what worked for me hope it helps regards ~CAP~ __________________ ~CAP~ Current Tank Info: 55 reef gallon plumbed into a 30 SPS, as well a 29 aquapod

05/15/2006, 09:17 AM	#18
Madoktopus Registered Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: London Posts: 462	The best way to keep sand white is to periodically replace some of it. Only way i ever found that worked efficiently.

05/15/2006, 10:58 AM	#19
ACBlinky Premium Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Peterborough, ON, Canada Posts: 4,954 Blog Entries: 20	The sugar-sized Aragonite in my 30g is as white as the day I put it in, but there's a catch. I have a pistol shrimp, and while he's fantastic at turning the sand over, he has a tendancy to put it wherever he wants so I end up with nice while piles of sand and areas where the tank is BB Here's a pic from a few days ago. __________________ "The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea." - Isak Dinesen Current Tank Info: 150g mixed reef, 30g sump/refugium, LED lighting, 100lbs LR, coral beauty, flame angel, blue & yellow tangs, gobies, damsels, 6-line wrasse, lawnmower blenny, dottyback, clown pair, rabbitfish, shrimp, crabs, CUC.

05/15/2006, 12:02 PM	#20
six.line Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Logan, UT Posts: 775	I can't believe only one person mentioned a sand sifting goby. The orange diamond back gobies are fantastic at keeping your sand clean. __________________ This post approved by Mrs. Sixline. assign <= six.line(#FFFFFF && string("nerdy")) Current Tank Info: 30 gallon with 10 gallon sump

05/15/2006, 12:42 PM	#22
reefnewbie54321 Moved On Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Boston Posts: 1,263	Sand sifting gobies and sand sifting stars will keep your bed nice and white but its only white becuase its no longer live sand, Gobies and Stars both eat fauna (the stuff that makes you bed alive) nassarius snails flow across bed and detrius eating sand bed cleaners I am going to make a 1 x 48 x 5"tall epoxy sandbed and put it the front of my display and then fill in sand around it so when viewing the tank you see a nice white sandbed but from the sides I can still view nitrogen exchange and moniter sulphide buildup ect. The hard part will be to give it that wavy look that most sandbeds have and not just a flat strip.

05/15/2006, 12:56 PM	#23
six.line Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Logan, UT Posts: 775	Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought it was primarily the bacteria that you needed in the sand to keep it alive. Surely the gobies don't eat that? I know a guy who's got an old school 75 gallon with VHOs, and a sand sifting goby. His sandbed is spotless, and yet his tank is firmly established, healthy, and beautiful. __________________ This post approved by Mrs. Sixline. assign <= six.line(#FFFFFF && string("nerdy")) Current Tank Info: 30 gallon with 10 gallon sump

05/15/2006, 02:08 PM	#24
kenny77 Registered Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Puerto Rico Posts: 2,792	there are 2 way that I know, having a cleaning crew or siphoning nassarius snails and sandsifting star are a good choice for natural cleaning, but if you have time and some extra bag of fine aragonite sand do what I did. I try to siphon as close from the sand but with out siphoning the sand. ofcourse there were some sand that end up in the bucket. well after siphoning everything that I didn't like (pup). I let the sand and the !@#$ settle down in the bucket, I then siphon back the water and leave about 2-3" of water in teh bucket. then I just add a couple of cups of new sand on tp of the one I siphon. but just a couple, no more than a 1/8" over the old sand __________________ "There's plenty of water in the universe without life, but nowere is there life without water" - Sylvia A. Farle, Project Director Sustainable Seas Expedition Kenny Current Tank Info: 24g nano. 60 cube in progress

05/15/2006, 02:27 PM	#25
Anemonebuff Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: LI,NY Posts: 3,877	Cucumbers and fighting conchs are good too.