Bubbles In My SAND

[Dadany]

I have small bubbles forming in my sand bed. They are being randomly released into the water by blue-legged hermits moving along the bottom of the tank.

There are also small bubbles forming on the base rock that is in my tank.

Is this normal? Is it gas released from the biological filtration process?

 

[reefland]

Is this late in the day with the lights on? or does this happen with the lights off to? If mainly during the day it could be just oxygen bubbles. It happens when your oxygen levels are higher than what can be dissolved in your water. Pretty common if you have algae issues in the tank as the algae create a lot of oxygen during photosynthesis.

 

[Dadany]

The bubbles are released during the day and night.

As to algae:
I have a brownish green substance growing on the sand. My water is also greeish in tint but not overly. I think the reflection from the sand is giving the impression that the water has a greenish hue. There is no noticeble hair algae growing on the rock or tank.

If phosphates are the problem what is the best way to remove them absent large water change. I dont have facilities setup at the moment for a large water change.

Ph, Ca, Nitrate, Nitrites within ranges.

 

[Anonymous]

Dadany, I suggest you run a search on "dinoflagellates." (hope I spelled that right). Sounds like that may be what you have.

 

[b.crabby]

this happened to me shortly before i had a slimy green algae appear. my advice is to nip this in the bud. cut your feeding down to about half and do a couple of water changes over 2 or 3 wk period. this small change in feeding habits got rid of quite an invasion of this type af algae in my 90 gal. if this is'nt your problem, then no harm done.

 

[Dadany]

I just taped my tank up with garbage bags to prevent any amdient light from entering the tank. I am going to leave the lights off for 3 days as recommended then slowly reaclimate the tank back to light. I also cleaned my skimmer and have it on high skim slightly wet.

I will add no additives except kalk with top-off water.

Will report back in 3 days. I hope my water and sand are crystal clear.

 

[reefland]

Good luck. Be interesting to see if you notice a difference in your skimmers output as each day goes by. (Assuming algae die off)

 

[Anonymous]

i am having a bit of an outbreak myself. i would like to limit the lights but i was wondering what sort of effects this has, if any, on the corals?

 

[K77]

Dadany, I suggest you run a search on "dinoflagellates." (hope I spelled that right). Sounds like that may be what you have.

I think dinoflagellates, diatoms, and cyano often get mixed up.

Cyano is generally the one that traps disolved oxygen and releases the bubbles. Tangs and hermits love cyano and it will feed a growth spurt in your coralline when it runs its course. Its probably short lived due to some increase in nutrient levels in the tank. If it continues, look at better ways to export nutrients. I have the same thing going on right now. I'm trying to get a new skimmer hooked up and tweak it. If I accidentally increase feeding, I get the thin film on top of my sand and the bubbles. Then it goes away and my corraline blooms. Hopefully once I get my skimmer set right long term, it will stop doing this.

 

[Anonymous]

I think dinoflagellates, diatoms, and cyano often get mixed up.

I agree and frankly I'm not sure if I have it straight as far as dinos vs. cyano. In my mind, dinos are more brown and "snotty" textured, creates more bubbles, and is more tied to the day/night cycle (practically disappears at night). Cyano is redder and more velvety, creates bubbles but not as many, and the hermits are willing to feed on it. To complicate things, I think my last little episode with these mofos was a mixture of the two (I think I got it about beat but a few more days will tell).

I would welcome somebody straightening me out if I've got them backwards or mixed up.

 

[Dadany]

Let me more specific if I can on what is appearing in my tank:
1. I have lots of base rock with just a few pieces of live rock.
2. Only 1 damsel fish.
3. 30 blue-legged hermits.
4. 2 banded cleaner shrimp.
5. Relatively new tank with no noticiable corraline growth as of yet.
6. 4 inches of play sand -- 20lbs of live sand
7. One cluster of mushrooms (6 total)
8. 90 gallon tank
9. 250 watt MH

When the MH was first installed the tank was crystal clear. During that time I decided to change the sand bed from crushed coral to the sugar sized play sand. The play sand is not a white as the crushed coral so I assumed the tint to the tank resulted from not having the pure white reflecting surface of the crushed coral.

Bubbles then started to appear in the sand substrate in my tank. Viewable through the tanks front glass about 1-2 millmeters below the surface of the sand. I remember from my first Reef tank some years ago that bubbles in the sand was normal but considering my low bio-load I started to pay closer attention to the tank.

I then noticed that there are also bubbles that appear on the base rock. It looks as though they are being released from the rock itself. In addition there is also a very fine layer of green algae on the back glass. I was going to add some snails to address this problem.

What I noticed after changing to the play-sand was that the tank wasnt as clear as it once was. It had a slight brownish greenish tint. I also noticed that these bubbles where being released into the tank from the sand and the rock. There is also a very fine brownish particulate matter slightly matting the sand.

After reading up on Dino as suggested, I have decided to blackout the light to my system for 3 days. I hope this will bring it back to its crystal clear state.

Note: There is no visible algae encasing the bubbles.

will post pics soon.

 

[Nelliereefster]

It's been my experience that slime algae, red or green is easy to discern. It ususally manifests itself withn the first few months of set-up and either clings to LR or spreads across the substrate. Comes in red and green sometimes vibrant green/torquoise. The best non-invasive/destructive removal method is to siphon it out using airhose (small flow rate lets you work longer with less water being drawn off.

Dinosflagellates on the other hand seem to appear later/after slime algaes. In the systems I've run, they seem to attach to macro algae, or sometimes on LR, but rarely on the substrate. The appearance is like a sheet of brownish/green snot. It's like the slime you buy at the kids store, but semi-transparent. It has a gelatinous texture, and traps nitrogen/oxygen as it is produced. Siphoning again is a good recourse.

There is one remedy that crushed a dino bloom in one of my mini-reefs. It's called "Red Slime Remover" an orange powder that comes in a little plastic bottle about three inches tall. I used about a third of the recommended dosage and literally overight, the dinos were dissolving. I cannot however comment on collateral effects. I think it is some form of antibiotic -which has its own implications on the LR/microfauna/meiofauna. It may also effect calcification and result in slower coralline growth, but that's just a SWAG. :roll:

Bottom line, siphon out what you can. Raising the pH has been recommended in Reef Aquariums Vol I (Sprung/Delbeek) It didn't work for me. The RSR product is a pretty good fx for the risk, but go much lower than recommended dosage. Aggresive water changes after the dinos start to dissolve is a good idea. The blacking out the tank idea only removes the energy source, and doesn't fix the nutrient problem. Dissolving organics may boost nutrients, and give you fits when you turn the lights back on :x

 

[K77]

Let me more specific if I can on what is appearing in my tank:
1. I have lots of base rock with just a few pieces of live rock.
7. One cluster of mushrooms (6 total)

Bubbles then started to appear in the sand substrate in my tank. Viewable through the tanks front glass about 1-2 millmeters below the surface of the sand. I remember from my first Reef tank some years ago that bubbles in the sand was normal but considering my low bio-load I started to pay closer attention to the tank.

I then noticed that there are also bubbles that appear on the base rock. It looks as though they are being released from the rock itself. In addition there is also a very fine layer of green algae on the back glass. I was

My personal guess is that any bubbles that appear below the sand's top layer is probably due to nirate processing beginning to start. You'll eventually have bubbles everywher under the top layer of your substrate, and greenish sulferic material below 1 to 2 inches surrounding the bubbles.

Now the bubbles on the rock I think are probably a seperate thing. That is probably small patches of cyano or just bubbles collecting from water flow or something.

Unless the bubbles are ont e surface of the sand thoug, these two are probably not related. But That's just my guess.

 

[aquarist=broke]

There was a time when I really Needed help......

Does your problem look like this.....This was my Cayano(sp) and Evil Atpasia(sp) problem about a year ago.

 

[danmhippo]

Dadany, do you see alot of micro bubbles in the water as well? I'd also suspect dino or cyno, but if you can take a picture, that would help diagnose it better.

Try wiping a surface with your hand, ridding all bubbles and check 12 hours later see if the bubbles reappears. How's your currents in the tank?

 

[Dadany]

After 1 full day of total light black out, I have noticed the following:
1. The simmate that is beging removed is a more concentrated color of the tint that was present in the water.
2. After turning on the lights for approximately 5 mins to make observations, the sand does not have the fine particulate matter covering it anymore. However, there still seems to be a stight tint to the sand bed.
3. The mushrooms are very retracted due to lack of light but I think they will reopen when light in reintroduced to the system.
4. The tint to the water seems to have significantly reduced although some remaining tint still remains.
5. The bubbles in the sand are still present although seemingly less in amount. I also speculated that the bubbles where a result of the bilological process but I thought, given the amount of such and the minimal number of inhabitants in my tank, the bubbles in greater amount than they should have been.

I am going to reduce the amount of light deprevation from 3 to 2 days and remove the covering tomorrow.

note: my tank never had algae as depicted in baquarist=broke's picture

 

[Dadany]

Update:

It seems that my problem was a combination of Dino and Cryo at the same time. The total blackout help out and seemed to cure the problem.

The water is crystal clear now and I have had no further outbreaks of the greenish/brown tint on my sand or water.

I am looking into purchasing a RO unit in the near future.

 

[reefland]

I'm surprised just a single day of no lights made such a difference. Hope it works long term.

 

[FLOPPYFISH]

I too have just noticed the bubbles in my sand. I though it was black spots in my sandbed untill closer inspection. Although they are deeper than a few mm. This leads me to suspect(HOPE) that its just the begining of the cycle to break down nitrates. Due to the fact that my tank has only been up a month and no bubbles on the sands surface or LR. Anyway thats what I hope. I do already have coralline growth and spreading but has stopped for the last week or few days, but I also haven't dosed Kalk for a week either.