Rate My Fish Tank

Sun Jul 26, 2009 7:34 pm GMT   Reply      

I am cycling my new fish salt water tank and some of the sand has turned black. I don't know what it is? Can anyone give me a solution to my problem.

12 gallon tank
Canister filter c130
Live rock a lot
Power head 1

Sun Jul 26, 2009 7:51 pm GMT   Reply      

ok well i hate to break it to ya but were probably going to have to get a little more info than that. How long have you been cycling your tank? Are you running carbon in your filter? Does your powerhead produce water flow throughout the sand evenly? Approx how many lbs of live sand and live rock do you have? And last but not least, what are your water parameters?

Sun Jul 26, 2009 7:59 pm GMT   Reply      

p.s - diatom is what im going with so far if you wanna research that a little bit, pix would help as well

Sun Jul 26, 2009 9:18 pm GMT   Reply      

black slime is just like red slime {other than its black,lol} it's a bactiera and not a normal part of a cycle, low water flow, low light spectrum, low salinity,or just bad nasty water will do it

do a 25% water change every 3 days for a couple weeks, change out you filter media at least once a week, run a good quality carbon {ie. black diamond or matrix by seachem} boost your water flow with a couple small powerheads, i had a nano koriala and loved it and now have a SEIO prop 320 and its an awsome lil pump too, 25 bucks................

and do whatever you can to stay away from chemicals, there are no miricle bottle cures in nature and i personally don't think they should be used in tanks either, but thats me

the diatom Blue is talking about will be a brown "dusty" looking crap {and it'll piss you off too, lol} but thats a normal part of a cycle and is an algae, NOT a bactieria

good luck bud


Boss

Mon Jul 27, 2009 3:03 pm GMT   Reply      

look at boss schoolin me again.... still cant get no respect around here lol. Never had any slime algae (knock on wood) so i woudlnt really recognize if it i saw it lol.

Mon Jul 27, 2009 7:17 pm GMT   Reply      

be thankful...................and yes you'll know it the moment you see it, ive got red in my tank right now.


theres no "schoolin" on my part bud, most of the time im reading these posts and takin notes

Boss

Mon Jul 27, 2009 7:27 pm GMT   Reply      

haha. you guys crack me up. slime algae (even though its not really algae) is a pain. But its not insane to get rid of. Like these guys said just siphon it out during a water change and it will go away eventually. Nothing eats it.......its actually a bacteria. if you find something that eats this stuff....tell us all and you will be a god in saltwater.