How Healthy is Your Bottom?

[BeejReef]

In regards to this topic, is stirring considered ‘cleaning’? I don’t consider myself to ‘clean’ necessarily, as I don’t remove any sand or water.

I do place a new filter pad in the sump before stirring and remove it afterwards though.

Perhaps I’m in the middle ground on the subject.

Does stirring actually remove microfauna, or just move it around to settle back in.

There is no middle ground dangit! Pick a side and man your post.. lol.

 

[brandon429]

hey look how powerful the preventative stirrers are
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-white-sand-method.252861/page-10#post-5222930
nice question

we're all dealing with detritus in different ways.

either way, its the detritus causing the action. the animals add to it, no animals eat detritus, even earthworms have full castings that have nutrients which gardeners enjoy

worms and crabs and starfish are slow turnover, they add pellets to the sand. snails too

but a diamond goby> he kicks it out of the sand, into suspension, into a filter pad like those guys do with a stick.

removing it before it becomes invader fuel is apparently fine, and the bed culls down to whatever microorganisms remain after partial stirring. could be best of both worlds

hands off sandbedding is phasing out of reefing. My whole work is spent around undoing what hands off, large tank sandbed keepers recommend for all tanks

nobody complains about the loss of fauna from gobies but they will if you clean it in some way.

 

[Paul B]

I remember you posting about the "hurricane" you make every 6 months or so, that gave me the impression you supported removing detritus from sand as I thought you gave these hurricanes a lot of credit to your longevity. (Although my memory isn't what it used to be, can look it up I guess) However in this post it sounds like you are the opposite view and don't deep clean at all.

Edit here is one of the articles I was thinking about but think I saw similar comments in other posts you have done.

In that article you quoted me I actually was referring to the pores in live rock.


Quote:
Think about it. Bacteria need surfaces and in our tanks, the surfaces are mostly on the substrate and the rocks. Not just on the rocks, but inside them, in the pores. The "rocks" we use in our tanks are not even real rocks. They were built by microscope creatures living on the rock. The creatures exuded this material and in the process of doing this, the "rock" was built full of pores. Inside these pores live the bacteria. The aerobic bacteria live near the surface and use the oxygen abundant there. The anaerobic bacteria live deeper in the pores and need far less, if any oxygen. I think they have larger noses to utilize the inadequate supplies of oxygen. Those are the bacteria that convert the nitrates to nitrate gas that escapes. End Quote.

In the substrate these bacteria also live but if the water can't get to the bacteria, the bacteria will do no good. We need to open channels for water flow so the bacteria has a chance to act on our water. I don't want to remove all the detritus but we need to open the pores in the rocks or the rock porosity is negated. In the substrate, I run a reverse UG filter which depends on water flow through the gravel. Most people do not. But with any substrait we need to have some sort of flow. If not, we have cement. Detritus is good because thats where bacteria live and feed, but they also need a means to get to the water.

 

[BeejReef]

In that article you quoted me I actually was referring to the pores in live rock.


Quote:
Think about it. Bacteria need surfaces and in our tanks, the surfaces are mostly on the substrate and the rocks. Not just on the rocks, but inside them, in the pores. The "rocks" we use in our tanks are not even real rocks. They were built by microscope creatures living on the rock. The creatures exuded this material and in the process of doing this, the "rock" was built full of pores. Inside these pores live the bacteria. The aerobic bacteria live near the surface and use the oxygen abundant there. The anaerobic bacteria live deeper in the pores and need far less, if any oxygen. I think they have larger noses to utilize the inadequate supplies of oxygen. Those are the bacteria that convert the nitrates to nitrate gas that escapes. End Quote.

In the substrate these bacteria also live but if the water can't get to the bacteria, the bacteria will do no good. We need to open channels for water flow so the bacteria has a chance to act on our water. I don't want to remove all the detritus but we need to open the pores in the rocks or the rock porosity is negated. In the substrate, I run a reverse UG filter which depends on water flow through the gravel. Most people do not. But with any substrait we need to have some sort of flow. If not, we have cement. Detritus is good because thats where bacteria live and feed, but they also need a means to get to the water.

When did under-gravel filters go out of vogue? I never even happened upon the concept when setting my tank up and I pretty much read the internet.

 

[brandon429]

good summary.

the takeaway is that even in the oldest reefs running for home, they're not just piling sand on the bottom of the tank and using animals to manage it, wont work for 50 years.

they must account for detritus, extra removal of it somehow, above what microorganisms do.

 

[JimSRT4]

When did under-gravel filters go out of vogue? I never even happened upon the concept when setting my tank up and I pretty much read the internet.

Well, under gravel filters are for gravel, not sand. I haven't used one in a saltwater tank since like '90.

 

[hart24601]

In that article you quoted me I actually was referring to the pores in live rock.


Quote:
Think about it. Bacteria need surfaces and in our tanks, the surfaces are mostly on the substrate and the rocks. Not just on the rocks, but inside them, in the pores. The "rocks" we use in our tanks are not even real rocks. They were built by microscope creatures living on the rock. The creatures exuded this material and in the process of doing this, the "rock" was built full of pores. Inside these pores live the bacteria. The aerobic bacteria live near the surface and use the oxygen abundant there. The anaerobic bacteria live deeper in the pores and need far less, if any oxygen. I think they have larger noses to utilize the inadequate supplies of oxygen. Those are the bacteria that convert the nitrates to nitrate gas that escapes. End Quote.

In the substrate these bacteria also live but if the water can't get to the bacteria, the bacteria will do no good. We need to open channels for water flow so the bacteria has a chance to act on our water. I don't want to remove all the detritus but we need to open the pores in the rocks or the rock porosity is negated. In the substrate, I run a reverse UG filter which depends on water flow through the gravel. Most people do not. But with any substrait we need to have some sort of flow. If not, we have cement. Detritus is good because thats where bacteria live and feed, but they also need a means to get to the water.

Ah my apologies. I thought this quote from the same article was talking about detritus build up in the sand. Quote:

"If you have a DSB, IMO your tank won't last more than ten or twelve years anyway so you are on your own, but at least do it to the rocks."

 

[fish farmer]

Current thought seems to be that eventually... 4-6 years... the sandbed hits its limit and one may expect hard to control nitrate and phosphate... "old tank syndrome?"

I'm always asking myself this question on longevity and how it relates to the overall care of the system. Overfeed? High fish load? Low flow? Missed water changes? Everything should be factored in with regard to input and output. I bet if I set up a huge remote sand bed with an tiny DT, it would last longer than something that is overwhelmed with nutrients on a daily basis.

FWIW I have a remote sandbed, not deep, but 3" or less that my DT spills into before skimming, etc. I toss some critters in there occasionally, this has never been stirred in the 5 years I've had it hooked to the display, my rock is also over 10 years old. It also has mangroves in it. My phosphates were running around 1....and nitrates were 30 last summer.

With the addition of Chaeto in my sump, I've been able to drop my phos to .5 pmm and my nitrates have been pretty steady at 5 pmm.

I really don't feel my sandbed is doing any good, BUT I'm going to pull it offline and run it as a separate system to see where the numbers fall.

 

[cracker]

I had a shallow sandbed breakout in HA looked like the front lawn . I finally vacuumed it all out. Never tried going bare bottom before so why not see.. My 2nd larger tank has a sand bed that I vacuumed from the beginning .
I slacked off the vacuum & started dosing ALK/Ca it quickly turned to rock . So for me at least, The jury is still out.

 

[BeejReef]

I'm always asking myself this question on longevity and how it relates to the overall care of the system. Overfeed? High fish load? Low flow? Missed water changes? Everything should be factored in with regard to input and output. I bet if I set up a huge remote sand bed with an tiny DT, it would last longer than something that is overwhelmed with nutrients on a daily basis.

FWIW I have a remote sandbed, not deep, but 3" or less that my DT spills into before skimming, etc. I toss some critters in there occasionally, this has never been stirred in the 5 years I've had it hooked to the display, my rock is also over 10 years old. It also has mangroves in it. My phosphates were running around 1....and nitrates were 30 last summer.

With the addition of Chaeto in my sump, I've been able to drop my phos to .5 pmm and my nitrates have been pretty steady at 5 pmm.

I really don't feel my sandbed is doing any good, BUT I'm going to pull it offline and run it as a separate system to see where the numbers fall.

Chaeto revolution seems to have been a bit of a game changer, the new "heavy in, heavy out" ethos. Seems like it would be more demanding on a DT sandbed.

 

[ZoWhat]

6ft 180 BB here.

The only CUC I believe in are urchins. Snails just cling to glass and usually die every 6mos. Hermits usually kill each other in 6-9mos. Crabs go rogue if they get hungry. Shrimp are so delicate they usually die in 6mos too

But I love urchins. I have 4 in my 180. Thinking if 2 more bc they're always busy

Soooooo. With urchins my BB is fine.

About every 1-2mos I blow a PH to get the Ash into the water column so it can go into the sump



.

 

[Scorpius]

You're gonna end up with issues by not vacuuming your sand bed occasionally. It'll get you sooner or later eventually. You have to remember we're running glass boxes full of water, not an ocean.

 

[fish farmer]

I had a shallow sandbed breakout in HA looked like the front lawn . I finally vacuumed it all out. Never tried going bare bottom before so why not see.. My 2nd larger tank has a sand bed that I vacuumed from the beginning .
I slacked off the vacuum & started dosing ALK/Ca it quickly turned to rock . So for me at least, The jury is still out.

My first attempt at a DSB in a 55 back in 2002, I turned that into a rock by dosing kalk. During that era there were two local reefers that had some awesome tanks, I would get SPS from one of them, Brad A(still over at RC) and Todd's Reef(Rochester, NY reefer), neither had DSB at the time when everyone was scrambling for Southdown sand. I'm not sure what their magic was, but really wanted to replicate it.

 

[cracker]

I remember looking for South Down , ended up using sand from local golf course they used it in the sand traps. Good Lord That stuff was silty ! LOL That was my dsb for some years never really touched it & had no issues .

 

[Paul B]

When did under-gravel filters go out of vogue? I never even happened upon the concept when setting my tank up and I pretty much read the internet.

We all used UG filters when we had freshwater. Then when salt came out in 1971 we still tried to use them, but they crashed in about a year.
I found that if you reverse the flow, they can last forever. Or at least 48 years.

But you need to stir the gravel once or twice a year. That is the only maintenance.

 

[hotashes]

We all used UG filters when we had freshwater. Then when salt came out in 1971 we still tried to use them, but they crashed in about a year.
I found that if you reverse the flow, they can last forever. Or at least 48 years.

But you need to stir the gravel once or twice a year. That is the only maintenance.

Just for clarity, is your flow being drawn down through the substrate or reverse and being pushed up through substrate?

Thanks,

A.

 

[Paul B]

Up through the substrate

 

[brandon429]

Paul if there was one prediction I could get in reefing its this one, from ya

What would happen in your system if you removed the RUGF and simply sat your sandbed on bare glass

 

[Paul B]

I am sure it would crash like the 8 million tanks that didn't last very long. But I am just guessing.

Why would I change what has worked so long?

 

[brandon429]

that was just to get a discussion regarding detritus impacts/ time and accumulation / if compounded and not mitigated problems happen so the best long term planning is anything but letting sand sit on the bottom of the tank undisturbed.

I for sure would not change anything running that well

 

[thatguyZach]

Personally I have never cleaned my sand bed and my tank will be going on 3 years inAugust. It's a 120gal mixed reef. I have a sand sifting star, tiger tail cucumber, some nassarius snails, and a sand tiger conch. With the exception of old empty shells from killed hermits or other snails my sand bed is super clean at roughly 2.5" deep throughout. In my experience if you leave it totally undisturbed with no critters to sift through it, it just leads to bad algae blooms or cyano even with heavy skimming and good sized refuge. Letting critters stir through the top layers of sand is vital in my opinion to a healthy sandbed and reef tank. Just my $.02