rocknut
Active Member
To give a little background on this, I have been running various reef tanks over the past ten years, so I have a basic understanding of most things reef, but every once in a while I realize that there are some basic, foundational subjects that I have probably never had a firm grasp on. Sand beds are one of those things, and I'm hoping to take a step back and better understand some of the basic elements of the how's, and why's, of sand beds, specifically the maintenance of a DSB.
When I set my first tank up about ten years ago, the majority of the tanks out there were running Deep Sand Bed setups, and the popular opinion was: don't put anything in the tank to disrupt the sand, no sifters, no fish that can stir things up, don't LOOK at the sand bed for too long. It was my understanding anyway that by adding a DSB, and cycling the tank with good live rock that the necessary creatures to populate the sand bed would migrate off of the rock, into the sand bed, and you would be on your way. I have also run a tank bare bottom, and my last sand bed was a shallow sand bed (the reason I have had so many different setups is because we rented for quite a few years, and inevitably the tanks had to come down every year or two for a move). My current tank has been up and running for 13 months, and is about 95% SPS corals. It is a 150 gallon with 10 square feet of floor space, and I have lots of flow, and a large Bubble King skimmer. Because of the high flow requirements of the tank, my sand bed ranges from about 4" in the middle of the tank to bare bottom at the edges. My tank was going great thru the spring, so good in fact that coupled with my biopellets, I ended up dosing KZ Pohl's Xtra (aminos), and noticed that after a few weeks the sand grains towards the middle of the tank started to turn a strange lime green color. I'm assuming that I was over dosing the aminos, and stopped, but not before a bloom of dinoflagellates. I have been dealing with the dinos for about four months now, and although I can't seem to totally get rid of them, they haven't taken over the tank either. Just enough to irritate me every time I look at the tank.
All this background (sorry) leads up to my actual questions. Basically, I have removed the biopellets, and am in the process of plumbing in an external frag tank that I will use as a macro algae refugium with as much additional live rock as I can fit in there. The goal being to provide a more balanced approach to processing nutrients in the tank. Not trying to start a discussion about biopellets - I know that they work - somehow in my tank I just feel like things got out of whack (user error I'm sure). This leads me to my sand bed...I am trying to address everything in the tank so that I can get the tank moving in the right direction again, so that I can then just let the tank run without changing anything else, and let it find its balance again. I realized last night that for all I know, the sand bed is the source of the extra nutrients in the tank, and that is fueling the dinoflagellate bloom? I did add a fighting conch a week ago, but haven't seen him do much yet. I guess I figure that these are my options:
1. add a sand sifting fish like a goby to constantly sift and move around the top layer of the sand bed? Again, from what I have read, opinions on this are EXTREMELY mixed.
2. pick a section of the sand bed to totally vacuum/clean each month, cycling thru the tank so about 1/6th of the sand bed is vacuumed every six months, leaving the majority undisturbed?
3. slowly start removing the majority of the sand bed until I am down to a 1" layer, and then just stir/vacuum the whole things regularly?
I have tried to do as much reading as possible on this subject, and am always surprised at how much opinions on this vary. I do run across a lot of statements like: the reefer has to be willing to accept the responsibility of additional regular maintenance if they are using a sand bed that is greater than an inch. I have no problem doing extra maintenance, but am confused as to what this maintenance is? Like I said, my understanding has always been to absolutely leave the sand bed alone.
Like I said, the sand bed is only about 13 months old, but I suppose that if I haven't been maintaining it correctly, it could have collected enough nutrients over this time to be a problem? Here is a photo of the deepest section of my sand bed for reference:
Appreciate everyone's feedback, and experience/opinions on this. Again, just want to get things running in the right direction again.
Thanks,
Rocky
When I set my first tank up about ten years ago, the majority of the tanks out there were running Deep Sand Bed setups, and the popular opinion was: don't put anything in the tank to disrupt the sand, no sifters, no fish that can stir things up, don't LOOK at the sand bed for too long. It was my understanding anyway that by adding a DSB, and cycling the tank with good live rock that the necessary creatures to populate the sand bed would migrate off of the rock, into the sand bed, and you would be on your way. I have also run a tank bare bottom, and my last sand bed was a shallow sand bed (the reason I have had so many different setups is because we rented for quite a few years, and inevitably the tanks had to come down every year or two for a move). My current tank has been up and running for 13 months, and is about 95% SPS corals. It is a 150 gallon with 10 square feet of floor space, and I have lots of flow, and a large Bubble King skimmer. Because of the high flow requirements of the tank, my sand bed ranges from about 4" in the middle of the tank to bare bottom at the edges. My tank was going great thru the spring, so good in fact that coupled with my biopellets, I ended up dosing KZ Pohl's Xtra (aminos), and noticed that after a few weeks the sand grains towards the middle of the tank started to turn a strange lime green color. I'm assuming that I was over dosing the aminos, and stopped, but not before a bloom of dinoflagellates. I have been dealing with the dinos for about four months now, and although I can't seem to totally get rid of them, they haven't taken over the tank either. Just enough to irritate me every time I look at the tank.
All this background (sorry) leads up to my actual questions. Basically, I have removed the biopellets, and am in the process of plumbing in an external frag tank that I will use as a macro algae refugium with as much additional live rock as I can fit in there. The goal being to provide a more balanced approach to processing nutrients in the tank. Not trying to start a discussion about biopellets - I know that they work - somehow in my tank I just feel like things got out of whack (user error I'm sure). This leads me to my sand bed...I am trying to address everything in the tank so that I can get the tank moving in the right direction again, so that I can then just let the tank run without changing anything else, and let it find its balance again. I realized last night that for all I know, the sand bed is the source of the extra nutrients in the tank, and that is fueling the dinoflagellate bloom? I did add a fighting conch a week ago, but haven't seen him do much yet. I guess I figure that these are my options:
1. add a sand sifting fish like a goby to constantly sift and move around the top layer of the sand bed? Again, from what I have read, opinions on this are EXTREMELY mixed.
2. pick a section of the sand bed to totally vacuum/clean each month, cycling thru the tank so about 1/6th of the sand bed is vacuumed every six months, leaving the majority undisturbed?
3. slowly start removing the majority of the sand bed until I am down to a 1" layer, and then just stir/vacuum the whole things regularly?
I have tried to do as much reading as possible on this subject, and am always surprised at how much opinions on this vary. I do run across a lot of statements like: the reefer has to be willing to accept the responsibility of additional regular maintenance if they are using a sand bed that is greater than an inch. I have no problem doing extra maintenance, but am confused as to what this maintenance is? Like I said, my understanding has always been to absolutely leave the sand bed alone.
Like I said, the sand bed is only about 13 months old, but I suppose that if I haven't been maintaining it correctly, it could have collected enough nutrients over this time to be a problem? Here is a photo of the deepest section of my sand bed for reference:
Appreciate everyone's feedback, and experience/opinions on this. Again, just want to get things running in the right direction again.
Thanks,
Rocky
