Bare bottom and live sand?

[TheHunterYall]

Has anyone experimented with a bare bottom tank that has had some sort of live sand reactor/filter??? Like pool sand filters? Maybe a canister filter used? Maybe something like a few Individual sand filter bags and you throw 1 away after 1,2,? Years???

 

[brandon429]

Some people keep sand in a sump for pre filtration and less waste incursion, slower flow, to aim for nitrate reduction.


used as a high flow high surface area fast-pass filter its useless meaning no tank params are benefited with or without it attached. Reef tanks already run orders more surface area than needed, we never ever need more than what the live rock offers, and 1/3rd of the amount people use will still run the entire system all alone

we are that far overdone on aerobic surfaces in reefing. negative space aquascapers are using that niche

if your sandbed isnt reducing nitrate demonstrably, saving you work somehow, then it’s just a huge bioload zone our tanks tolerate and share oxygen with. A common reef tank sandbed is a huge oxygen sink, aerobes, you’d never want that during power outages thats for sure.

a deep sandbed sump at least can be easily disconnected offline during stress events. Pool sand filters are the high pass kind, we dont get any benefit from those, simply less oxygen for the systems fish.

 

[polyppal]

For surface area to populate bacteria? I think most people would just use some kind of biomedia in the sump instead.

 

[CMMorgan]

I know a local reefer that has a full sized brute (30+ gallons) full of live sand. Water pumps through the sand through several pipes as part of his overall filtration. I believe the tank is between 240-300 + a lagoon in the fish room that hosts macroalgae and clowns. So.... I'll take the overall volume to be north of 400 gallons.
Does it do enough to justify the step? Honestly... probably not. His tank has good and bad moments, just like the rest of us. It's no magic pill.

 

[Karliefish]

Has anyone experimented with a bare bottom tank that has had some sort of live sand reactor/filter??? Like pool sand filters? Maybe a canister filter used? Maybe something like a few Individual sand filter bags and you throw 1 away after 1,2,? Years???

I wanted a place for wrasse and other sand dwellers to sleep so I created an island in my 365G tank with a rock barrier to hold the black sand in place. I was highly skeptical that the sand would stay Inside the rock barrier, but so far so good. However it has only been a month.

 

[Arthurfarris]

You need to consider is the ease through which you can make the sand move in the reactor. Fluidized bed reactors need to have the filter medium moving for them to work. The pool filter sand should not be so dense that it would just settle at the bottom. It will only cause the filter to clog and the water to stagnate. The sand should also not be so light that it makes the water cloudy. It should be the right density that acts like a fluid when you pump water through it.

 

[Karliefish]

You need to consider is the ease through which you can make the sand move in the reactor. Fluidized bed reactors need to have the filter medium moving for them to work. The pool filter sand should not be so dense that it would just settle at the bottom. It will only cause the filter to clog and the water to stagnate. The sand should also not be so light that it makes the water cloudy. It should be the right density that acts like a fluid when you pump water through it.

Sorry If my description of what I setup was not clear. The sand is not in a setup on a reactor but instead is placed in the DT and is kept in place through a barrier of rock that prevents it from moving all around the tank. UPDATE: after three months it’s working much better than I had anticipated as all the sand has stayed inside the rock barrier.