Live rock has white poweder on it.

[PLasmah]

Hi all...

 

I'm in about a week and afew days into my 10 gallon hex tank cycle and my rocks have this white stuff all over it now. It looks like micro salt or white powder. What is that stuff?

 

Thanks

[sdbeazley]

do you have sand, and if so did you wash it because it could be dust or you didn`t mix the salt good enough.

[PLasmah]

No sand... I have crushed florida coral. And the salt is mixed well.

[sdbeazley]

Well did you wash it because I also have crushed coral and I got alot of it off by washing it off and still had some for a while.

[MillerLite]

The white powder may be residual powder from your coral substrate has settled from your water column. Was your water originally cloudy when you placed the substrate in?

 

Wanted to warn you on the problems associated with crushed corals in small reef aquariums. There seems to be much debate over the pro's and con's of using crushed coral substrates versus sand substrates. I had a reef for over a year with crushed coral. Had a terrible problem in keeping some of my nitrite/nitrate levels down. I suspected that deitrus was settling down in my substrate which made it impossible for your cleaner crew to access and clean up. The food and waste then rots promoting large increases in nitrates. All was resolved with a change to sand however the substrate change on an established aquarium is a large pain in the rear. Since you are only 10 days into your reef, you may want to consider a substrate change. Search around and see what people say about substrates. May save you lots of head pains and money in the long term to do a change now if you see benefits to do so. Good luck!

[PLasmah]

Hi...

 

I hear what your saying bro. But I'll roll the dice and try my luck with the crushed coral. I'm not really going to put much in this tank anyways mostly juss a fish or two. This tank is my test bed for bigger plans later =)

 

Thanks much for all you help. I'm listening very closely to what you all say and learning alot here.

[AReeferIsExpensive]

Ive had that happen a couple times... it only happens to rocks that are recieving current straight at them~

[DSparks]

/agrees with hat AReeferIsExpensive said . . .

[kolmogorov]

I'm setting up my first reef tank and got some crushed coral

just to have something on the bottom to keep it from looking

bare. On the package it said, "Pre-washed, only minimal rinsing

required". I rinsed it with five gallons of distilled water and

thought, "That ought to constitute minimal rinsing". When

I put it in my tank, however, the cloud it raised up turned the water

milky white so that I couldn't see anything. I let it sit for a day without

the filter running thinking it would settle out with gravity, but it didn't.

After a day of sitting there it was just as cloudy. So then I ran the

filter for a day and that cleared it all out of the water. The filter cartriage

was full of the fine white powder, and I rinsed it out. Although

the filter seems pretty efficient at removing the dust from the

water, it does nothing for the dust that clings to the side of the glass

or that settles down over everything in the tank. The slightest

disturbance to the crushed coral on the bottom raises another cloud

of dust which takes another 24 hours to filter out and leaves another

thin film of dust on everything.

 

Feeling this is not acceptable, I removed most of the crushed coral

with a cup (stirring up another cloud of dust) and rinsed it very thorougally.

I probably spent an hour at the sink, rinsing out a cup at a time to get

all the fine dust off. Now there is still dust in the tank, I couldn't scoop

it all up with the cup, but hopefully the total dust load is lower so that

the dust storms will get weaker with time. The whole experience was

really annoying, and I didn't feel adequately warned at all. Only minimal rinsing require.... ha! Here is a photo of the last dust storm, stirred up

by me removing the coral (I've put the rinsed coral back in in this photo

but the dust hasn't settled yet). The other picture is how the water

looks after 24-hours of filtering.

 

Hope this thread helps someone else avoid this annoying issue.

[kolmogorov]

This is how much it clears up the water after running

the filter for 24-hours. The filter is literally loaded with

the chalky powder after this, and there is still a thin

film of the stuff all over everything, including the glass.