Deep sand bed or shallow sand bed?

[Cory p]

What do most of Yal prefer on your sand beds,deep or shallow? Pros and cons. Thanks in advance

 

[EchoPapaGolf]

I've always preferred a DSB. I'm a big fan of burrowing goby/shrimp combos and wrasses that bury themselves in the sand at night.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Most prefer shallow. Some gonin the middle
But pers I think that's a. Bad idea.
I have all Dsb. But you have to have worms and bugs to make it work correctly.

 

[cloak]

Having kept both successfully over the years, I prefer shallow sand beds now. They're just too easy to keep clean plus you can still accommodate all the micro fauna that prefers this type of environment.

 

[Fish4udog]

DSB if your a wrasse fan have a black Leopard buries every night neat to catch them burying or getting up

 

[Cory p]

Ok thanks everyone for your input. I plan on putting new sand in my tank tomorrow and was thinking about doing a shallow sand bed in this one and see how I like it

 

[michael.cser20]

I have no sand bed.

 

[Tori]

After only one year in the hobby, I like the idea of a deep sand bed but I feel like it's a little advanced for me at this point. I'll probably try it at some point. Maybe in a pico reef with just inverts...

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

After only one year in the hobby, I like the idea of a deep sand bed but I feel like it's a little advanced for me at this point. I'll probably try it at some point. Maybe in a pico reef with just inverts...

It's actually to small. IME.

 

[Paul B]

Reverse Undergravel filter

 

[Tori]

It's actually to small. IME.

Good to know! Just curious, was it too small to get the depth you need or just not enough total surface area? I was thinking of taking the sand bed half way up a tallish 2 gallon jar but maybe that's still not enough room for all the worms and micro organisms.

 

[nicholas.babb@gmail]

No sand bed for me.

 

[Andnosobabin]

Reverse Undergravel filter

How long have you been running this and what do you think are the benefits?

 

[Paul B]

How long have you been running this and what do you think are the benefits?

46 years. I think the benefit is that it ran for 46 years with no problems. And it's still running.

 

[Andnosobabin]

46 years. I think the benefit is that it ran for 46 years with no problems. And it's still running.

That's awesome on the 46 years. Lol I was hoping for more of a in depth thing. Like in those 46 years have you kept the same sand and left it untouched or have you spend day in and day out tending to things. I mean I'd be willing to bet there's plenty of ppl doing almost everything wrong yet have had tanks for years. What other equipment do you run or is it just the reverse sand bed and a recirculating pump. I mean face it 46 yrs is amazing and I wanna know how you did it lol[emoji1]

 

[Paul B]

Andnosobabin I did it because that was the only filtration at the time. There were also no sumps and I also don't have one of those. It is a regular UG filter but I pump water into a manifold over the water level and there are three tubes coming out of the bottom of it which brings about 150 GPH down each tube. Slower is better. I use about 2" of dolomite over it.
The only maintenance I do is about once a year, I use my diatom filter and stir up the dolomite where I can reach and suck out the detritus.
I have never had any problems with it. my fish are immune from everything and besides jumping out, they die of old age.
The other equipment I have is a DIY skimmer with Ozone and water cooled LED lights that get cooled with a radiator. Algae scrubber

This is the water cooled light



Algae scrubber



Water cooled light for algae scrubber

 

[najer]

As mentioned above a couple of times, deep imo.
Just take the time to let it establish.
Dove snails and copipods are a good start, let it work as part of the system.

 

[Richards_reef]

For me it depends on live stock. I love jaw fish so deep is what I have. I don't like the look of bare bottom, so if I didn't have fish that needed it, I'd do just a shallow layer of sand.
Also I'm pretty anal about maintenance of the same bed. Once every 3 to 6 months, I pull half the sand out of the tank and clean it.

 

[alanbetiger]

I just like the look of a DSB regardless of functionality