If you don't do this will it CRASH your tank?

[brandon429]

Dan P does studies that help this type of thread:

What’s In Your Substrate?

After several conversations with @taricha and @brandon429, I became interested in measuring the amount of organic material in the substrate of my fish only system. One method I found uses basic KMnO4 to estimate the chemical oxygen demand (COD) in a sample. The amount of KMnO4 consumed...

www.reef2reef.com

They are taking measure of the constituents of the waste that sandbeds trap, pretty much all implied risk in this thread is attributed to one or more types of waste.

If they find significant nitrate support from detritus, or very low correlation of nitrate storage in detritus it still won't change direction in the sand rinse thread->detritus is too risky to transfer we would rather blast it out or remove bed altogether. If they do find it contributes nitrate when compounded years in a typical Berlin style sandbed then that would explain a lot

I'll be astounded if they measure it low in contribution, it's more fun to pen the stuff as the evil of the aquarium lol

perhaps oxic states matter, Paul B has no particular fish problems when he diatom cleans, but he is kicking up reverse dsb waste which oxidized from the design of the reverse flow undergravel filter compared to a sits-on-bottom sandbed.

Deep dredges from older sandbeds or sandbeds of different grain sizes might yield varying states of protein in decay, and subsequent nitrogen species to be contributed. seeing someone take time to measure using lab gear and control is rare gem

The hobby is currently shifting towards throughput and nonstorage of waste, rollermats to catch all, how we handle particulate matter is changing in the hobby.

 

[sfin52]

Most of you are aware of my crash from a dirty sandbed. Bare bottom now.

I thought it was the fug light growing stuff under the sand

 

[Crabs McJones]

I thought it was the fug light growing stuff under the sand

It was, so technically it was a dirty sand bed

 

[Dragon52]

I have wrasses & a pretty good CUC to help turn my sand. Plus my Red spot clown keeps a good portion moving when he cleans around the bottom of his LTA & he gets mad at me when I push some back because it get to close to my Zoas. lol

 

[Fourstars]

You guys and gals that can manage a sand bed are reefing Gods! I either don’t have the talent, or just to lazy.

Click # 46

 

[radiata]

True story shortly after I took my picture for my profile one of those powerheads were dislodged and stirred up my deep sand-bed. Killed most of my fish that night couldn’t have know till I woke up to most my sand was blown to one side. My corals slowly started to die also but got most of them out in time. Deep sand bed is dangerous in my opinion cause the idea is to not mess with it.

Perhaps the moral of this story is actually "Use only high quality powerheads with proven methods for attaching them securely to your aquarium's walls." Maybe one should only use powerheads that come with the warnings about their magnets being really strong and able to smash your fingers if not handled properly.

 

[Steve9333]

If it’s a true deep sand bed in a refugium don’t touch it.

 

[Ricky_Reef]

My diamond goby that I hate to love turns so much sand over that I barely ever have to fool with it.

 

[zoajunkie83]

This is very interesting to watch and view. I have always has a sand bed for the past 17 years. I just always was told not to disrupt the bed so haven't had a issue that I could Target to that! But I'm in the belief that it could cause a crash, but may be miss informed.

 

[DSC reef]

False, managing sand beds are just as easy as bare bottom. Running a reef tank no matter what style you prefer requires maintenance. I've had sand beds that weren't disturbed, sand beds vacuumed weekly and bare bottom tanks. IME bare bottom was the hardest to maintain. It's to often that sand beds are blamed for tank crashes and issues when usually a different method is required when having a sand bed. If we were to set up another tank I'd go back to a sand bed and rely on a good clean up crew. The more the sand bed was messed with, the more cyano and uglies would develop. In the 125 the sand was always white and never cleaned it once.

 

[jesse1134]

You guys and gals that can manage a sand bed are reefing Gods! I either don’t have the talent, or just to lazy.

Click # 46

Dude when I started my 60 gallon it went through an obvious ugly stage and my entire sand bed was covered diatoms and algea. I got a conch snail and I kid you not 2 days later it was spotless and when I say spotless I mean as white as the day I put it in. The thing even tries to climb on my rocks to get little strings of hair algea.

 

[Dom]

I would like clarification on the term "Tank Crash".

I see this phrase used regularly, and would like to know how it is defined.

 

[redeyejedi]

Member @Shooter6 is our inspiration for the QOTD with his question about sand beds and keeping them vacuumed!

Many reefers have sand in their reef tank. Some would be considered "deep" sand beds while others just sand beds. But could what we do or don't do have a direct effect on the longevity or our reef tank when it comes to the sand bed and more specifically keeping it clean? How do you keep a sand bed clean? Vacuum it, replace it, add critters that will help keep it clean etc. So let me ask you this.

Do you think that NOT keeping your sand bed clean will eventually result in a complete tank crash at some point? Why or why not?


Beautiful reef photo via @JohnnyTabasco

Im not sure if it would cause a crash or not. I have never cleaned mine but i have been thinking about it for a while. No problems from not doing it yet though.

 

[Fourstars]

So let me ask, how many coral farmers use sand? aren't WWC’s tanks sandless? Battlecorals? I think Tidal Gardens has sand in the sump. if Someone could point to one benefit to sand besides “it looks pretty“

 

[brandon429]

Positives
Marine snow / suspended floc feed can be produced in sandbeds depending on turnover rates and regularity, boosting feed diversity for the system in the form of bacterial aggregates, gametes/larvae + tiny creatures living in the sand

In some arrangements it is claimed that sandbeds will reduce captured waste into inert minerals and not contribute to overall waste loading. When this balance works, or hasn’t topped a bell curve yet, the benefit is a low work system

Non compliance in self-balancing is why so many here either rinse the beds and keep them clean, or have found working animals combinations or they just remove the beds altogether for ease and convenience / today’s retail feed availability clearly makes up for missing sandbed contributions

Dom mentioned above the definition of crash, on work threads it’s a twofold definition: willing takedown from the aquarist due to invasions that can’t be beaten or some form of direct, fast loss associated with waste stores being kicked up. Inert mud can’t be killing fish, ammonia or sulfide gasses have to be killing them when it does occur / gets kicked up but nobody has really ever measured and linked ammonia or high nitrate measures from sandbed muck (Dan is closing in) we only have very strong correlations between bed disturbance and loss in a display tank from example threads where people disturb sandbed, get a cloud, and some loss occurs.

In contrast the sand rinse thread is 30 pages of treating detritus like the active plague and by excluding it even when not required, we have zero tank losses. The hobby needs some measurements to close gaps between guesses and patterns.

 

[Gareth elliott]

So let me ask, how many coral farmers use sand? aren't WWC’s tanks sandless? Battlecorals? I think Tidal Gardens has sand in the sump. if Someone could point to one benefit to sand besides “it looks pretty“

The ability to keep certain fish and inverts is why i keep a sand bed.

Fish and inverts i keep ill do a surface siphon of my sand bed occasionally but never the whole thing just where detritus accumulates. But never that deep, i let my ceriths, nassarius snails, and cucumbers deal with that.
Finally added another sand sleeping wrasse, radiant wrasse, as well.

 

[Admann]

False. I don't have one so if I don't clean it nothing at all will happen. Oh, I don't have water either, or rocks, or much of anything. Pretty much I have a nice glass box full of air. Absolutely zero maintenance.

me too, but not for long

 

[brandon429]

It would help to measure the balance if you’d take a wooden dowel Gareth with quarter inch hose taped to the end and press it into the back corner of the bed all the way down to bottom

Dredge out a sample and put the mud water into a cup and keep it aerated, bubbled, and topped off for three days to give aerobes time to act on the sample

Test for nitrates after three days, post. This measures protein and nitrate potential using simple tools and sees how deep animals go, and if they leave whole pellet waste behind as they travel the bed

Anyone here could take that measure and add some data to pages of guessing

 

[Undertaker]

I do clean my sand bed which is around 1 1/2 deep. However, I do not believe it will crash my tank if I do not clean it. Back in the day deep sand bed were the thing.

 

[Bob Weigant]

I keep sand in the back of my tank ( for my wrasses ) and bare in the front. Easy for me to take care of it this way