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What are these clumps of sand?


KimP

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Got back last week after being gone a week and a half. Came home to something wrong in the tank. Since I've been paying attention closer than usual I can't say whether these are a new occurrence or I just didn't notice them before. They're just loose clumps of sand. When poked or pushed around they stay together but aren't dense at all. My only idea is they might be from the wrasses, I have a red-lined and a yellow wrasse. I do have one cucumber but he's always in the same area and much much too small to leave these big clumps. I'm not missing any fish either. Ideas?

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Not sure but my first guess would be algae is involved, and I wouldn't be surprised if the action of the wrasses isn't part of the explanation. Are they only occurring where there's direct light? And how often do they occur?

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Not sure but my first guess would be algae is involved, and I wouldn't be surprised if the action of the wrasses isn't part of the explanation. Are they only occurring where there's direct light? And how often do they occur?

I've only noticed 3 in the week since we've been back, all near the same size and in the light. I wouldn't say directly under a light, but definitely not shaded.

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Is there any correlation to where you feed the fish? And I'm guessing if you push your grabbers/tongs down through the sand the sand form clumps in some areas and other areas flows freely?

Possibly although I wasn't the one feeding the fish while I was gone. Not sure where they did it. It could be where a clump of food settled and rotted. I poke around in the sand often, for various reasons, and it's not been clumpy at all, just regular loose sand. These clumps sit on top of the sand.

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Yeah, I've had sand show areas that are compacted or have something growing and it will stay "clumpy" if tongs are pushed through it. Haven't really given it much thought though and it's pretty infrequent.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Mystery solved. I noticed a conch making one of these sand clumps last night. I watched it on and off for a few hours. It didn't look like any sand was coming from it's mouth but it was pushing the sand around with it's mouth. More like the sand was coming out from underneath it's mouth. I still don't know exactly what it is, some sort of egg thing, pooped out clean sand, or what, but at least I know where it came from! I have 2 of these conch snails and they are always within a few inches of each other, and most of the time touching each other. So that's it! The other clumps fell apart after a week or so.

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