Sand Storm

[MtnDewMan]

Oh boy did I create a mess today.

I was doing some maintenance in the back of the tank, the back spray bar came out of it's connection and a huge huge sand storm ensued.

After things settled a bit, I started siphoning off the bottom and rock work, trying to keep the coral free from the sand storm. Now remember I don't have sand so it was likely a lot of detritus and the silt from some crushed coral I put in originally. I siphoned into a mesh bag. I picked up some of the crushed coral down there too.

Then I let things settle and then I blew off the rock work with a turkey baster. Then did some more siphoning.

Now I am done for the night but have more turkey basting and siphoning tomorrow.

I hope the coral do well.

On a side note, I can't find my wrasse Not on the floor either ... hmmm

And my mandarin is looking thin ... I guess when I made the change over so quickly with all the new rock, it is not enough for the mandarin ....

When it rains it pours.

Anyone else ever create a large sand storm? And if so, how did it turn out?

 

[jmaxwell]

I have multiple times (don't ask) anyway it has turned out fine...It just seems like the next couple of days you need to go back with the turkey baster to get the detritus and sand off your rockwork and your corals as it settles. I have never had it hurt any of my corals or fish though.

Jim

 

[j.stagner]

I seem to do this every 4-5 months, through some stupid trick or another. Usually clears up in 1-2 days. Like jmaxwell, I often need to go back with a turkey baster and make sure that many of my corals don't have a sand pile in them.

 

[mojoreef]

Sounds like a good feeding for the tank Chuck, hehe. At least now you know you have a few collection points where the detritus is collecting. The Manderin is a little spooky, have you ever tried to turn it over to other food types??

MIke

 

[Dr B]

I had a maxijet loose its suction in the middle of the night and fell pointing right into my sand. It made a Huge mess. Took over a day to clear, but everything was okay.

I have also created my own sandstorms when having to move rock etc... Things ussually are okay as long as its not excessively long.

 

[Montanarocknreefer]

Personally I think sand storming in your reef tank is very beneficial to your critters and corals in your tank. I blast my LR with a turkey baster about once a month and after the tank looks alot better and so do the corals.

As far as the mandarin they do need alot of LR(100lbs or more) or a refugium set up to constantly feed them the bugs they require to survive!

 

[MtnDewMan]

The storm is over ... it was a heck of a storm too. Yep, have some stagnant pockets under that spray bar apparently ... next time, bare bottom and some holes that point DOWN to clear our that area ... there's always something. Today things look much better

 

[Desolas]

I did maintenance on my calcium reactor recently, I wanted to replace all of the media, and not wanting to waste what I have I decided to dump it in the sump for my 29g; I wanted sand/gravel in the refugium anyway. Woah, what a mess, nearly a week of solid white cloud before it calmed down.

At least you were smart and did not glue all of your spray bar together. I did on mine, now I'm not going to be able to remove detritus that may build up in it.

 

[MzWeazelle]

I've been using a turkey baster to scare up junk off the rocks since shortly after we set up our tank. Glad to hear that I probably haven't been hurting anything. It seemed like the only way to "clean house." We don't have a whole lot in the tank yet, but the polyps and the Mandarin seem to like the dust storm. I try to get in there about once every week or two.

MzWeazelle

 

[Mushroom Boy]

My clown fish makes sure that we have multiple sand storms every day . Seems she's constantly digging and "wagging" at sand level. I usually blow my rocks off with a baster once a week and I agree with Johnny, the corals all seem to look much better the next day...

 

[G~]

my guess is that since you do not have a substrate on the bottom of your tank the mandarin is finding it much easier to find all the pods. the pods do not have as many places to hide as they did before.

either that or you killed most of the population when you switched everything over and they are not able to get back up to a decent population with such an efficient predator in the tank.

G~

 

[MtnDewMan]

yah, probably right with the mandarin ... that and I put in 75% new rock (relatively uncured) when I switched over to a system without the sand bed ...

It does eat enriched brine shrimp, so maybe I can get him someeeeeeething to eat that way