can't stop sand from turning black in back of aquarium

[wild bill]

We have a fx5 running our 6ft, x 18x30 180 aquarium it only holds 9 fish. The problem is the sand along the back wall of the tank keeps building up with anaerobic bacteria. We even added ramshorn snails but think the fish ate them. Can some one give us some tips the sand should be being turned as the fish are fosso chromis rostratus and blue dolphins.

 

[BayArea_510]

i use a gravel vac and once a week i gravel vac all my sand which like flips it and turns it and makes it soft

 

[love The Jack Dempseys]

i use a gravel vac and once a week i gravel vac all my sand which like flips it and turns it and makes it soft

same here

 

[Water]

You could use Malaysian Trumpet Snails(MTS).. not many fish each them and they're pretty good at turning sand since they reproduce so readily.

 

[Owain4]

i'll just go to the extreme here. why dont you change the sand to black sand? i know its a big tank and it would be expensive but its an option

 

[Ancient_Fish_Master]

get some earth eaters like some Geos or something, i have a group in my tank and they keep my sand will mixed.

 

[HackJob]

how deep of a sand bed?

 

[wild bill]

The sand was around inch to inch and a half deep. We really thought the rostratus would like the deepre sand as they are always digging in it and will actually bury themselves in it. I think we lost 2 of our fish because of this and the more we seemed to turn it the more it turned black. Iwas actually wondering if we moved the fx5 intake farther down the tank if that might even help.

 

[BayArea_510]

just gravel vac once a week

 

[lipadj46]

what kind of sand?