Sand bed

[Wiz]

A snail will not stirr up much at all. They are pretty good at moving sand without releasing to much into the water. It only takes a second to see the difference. Watch a nassarious bury itself, note the amount of crap that comes up. Them run your finger through the same spot. Much worse.

Never understood this.
So, it's ok to add critters that mess up the sand bed, yet stir it lightly, but not ok for us to gently stir it in sections?

These critters don't take the junk out, just move it around, we have to manually remove detritus and such.

 

[cloak]

Micro fauna are only effective in a bed 3+ inchs. A sand bed an inch or less can not support enough life to be affective.

lol, what? Can you please elaborate?

 

[Wiz]

Check out this article. It explains it all. Very well. If your bed is less than 3" it will collect much more gunk than it can deal with. The amount of fauna required to be beneficial will not be possable in a shallow sand bed.

http://www.ronshimek.com/deep_sand_beds.html

lol, what? Can you please elaborate?

 

[Wiz]

Its pretty well accepted that if your sand is less than 3" its better to have as little as you can and clean it regularly. Thats how I understand it. But the article explains it better

 

[deerhunter06]

Its pretty well accepted that if your sand is less than 3" its better to have as little as you can and clean it regularly. Thats how I understand it. But the article explains it better

Didn't read your link but I would imagine this differs highly from tank to tank depending on bioload and how often you feed. Also tank dimensions a tall tank may differ greatly from a very wide tank from front to back because there is more sand overall.

 

[cloak]

Its pretty well accepted that if your sand is less than 3" its better to have as little as you can and clean it regularly. Thats how I understand it. But the article explains it better

Yeah, I've read that article many times before. I had a 4" DSB in one of my older tanks for a very long time, but saying that you should limit the amount of life in SSB just seems absurd to me. I'd much rather stir up the muck and keep the micro fauna in the process.

 

[Wiz]

The point is a 1" sand bed cant hold enough fauna and bacteria to do anytthing. 3" maybe somewhat subjective but the premise is what's important. If you havnt read the article, you should. Every reefer should. Its written by a veteren reefer and makes great sense. But its up to us to use our own methods. So up to you.

Didn't read your link but I would imagine this differs highly from tank to tank depending on bioload and how often you feed. Also tank dimensions a tall tank may differ greatly from a very wide tank from front to back because there is more sand overall.

 

[deerhunter06]

Yeah I fully understand your point, my point is that there many ways to skin a cat in this hobby. If you have 300lbs of sand in a tall tank it will be deeper if you have 300lbs of sand in a wide tank it will be more shallow are you trying to tell me there is a different amount of bacteria between the two? I think not, no need for me to read anything, I wont be changing my mind.

 

[Wiz]

Maybe you misunderstand me. Im not saying to limit the fauna. Im saying less than 3" oor so will collect more gunk than it cleans. By all means keep as much fauna as possable. But sand will collect a lot of junk. Thats all. Its a matter of ratio. Is it more negative or posative. And a this is my understanding. So im not stating it as fact. Just what ive learned over time. My 40b has more coral, fish, and inverts than most 100+ tanks. And is fed pretty heavily. The display has 1/2" sandbed which i vacuum. The 30l fuge with 6" dsb keeps my water beautiful. I run a small carbon bag andundersized skimmer. And no water changes in more than a year.So the fuge and dsb are doing it all.

Yeah, I've read that article many times before. I had a 4" DSB in one of my older tanks for a very long time, but saying that you should limit the amount of life in SSB just seems absurd to me. I'd much rather keep the micro fauna and stir up the muck in the process.

 

[chefjpaul]

A snail will not stirr up much at all. They are pretty good at moving sand without releasing to much into the water. It only takes a second to see the difference. Watch a nassarious bury itself, note the amount of crap that comes up. Them run your finger through the same spot. Much worse.

That was my point, also to stir it up manually and remove the detritus and junk.

 

[Wiz]

No worries. To each his own. Again you missed the point. Its not so much 3" as much as a lot of sand. An inch in any tank tall or short is not enough. But its cool ill leave yall to it. Good luck and happy reefing.

Yeah I fully understand your point, my point is that there many ways to skin a cat in this hobby. If you have 300lbs of sand in a tall tank it will be deeper if you have 300lbs of sand in a wide tank it will be more shallow are you trying to tell me there is a different amount of bacteria between the two? I think not, no need for me to read anything, I wont be changing my mind.

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

what is that? tiger tail cuke?

A "Tiger Tail" sea cucumber. They are not a risk of toxins like a "sea Apple"cuke. It slowly pulls in the sand through its mouth and excretes clean sand pellets. A living sand filter pretty much. It is not destructive to your fauna like a sand sifting star. So far he's done a great job. They are nocturnal.

 

[jpontier212]

A "Tiger Tail" sea cucumber. They are not a risk of toxins like a "sea Apple"cuke. It slowly pulls in the sand through its mouth and excretes clean sand pellets. A living sand filter pretty much. It is not destructive to your fauna like a sand sifting star. So far he's done a great job. They are nocturnal.

Will the fish mess with him? I have a coral beauty, maroon clownfish, yellow damsels, kole Tang. Does it eat coral?

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

My take on the sand stirring and I have no evidence or study to back it up, but it seems to make sense. If you stir your bed and vacuum from the beginning and keep it up as part of your maintenance then there is slim risk at releasing and causing toxin issues. However if after running a while suddenly decide to mix it up a bit, that risk is greatly elevated. My Sandbed is right at the 3" mark and I have not stirred my Sandbed in almost a year. I do try and disturb the surface (roughly top 1/4-1/2") of it prior to vacuuming and pre water change. I may be totally off on this one, but this is what works for me.

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

He will not eat coral as I have a mixed reef and did about 3 or so months of research on him to be sure. None of my fish have so much as batted an eye at him. (Coral beauty, 2 damsel, 2 osc clown, blue spot goby, lawnmower blenny, red banded goby, benggai Cardinal, Royal gramma, mixed snails and hermits)

 

[Lonny]

My sand bed is 3" deep in spots and less in others. It's 8 months old and I don't dig into it, you can rough up the surface like reefermaddness said but my wife decided she didn't like the bubbles in the sand and used a chopstick poking it all the way to the bottom. Luckily only in one spot. The next day I had what looked like a big bruise in the sand bed that you could see thru the glass! This was the fauna die off from being disturbed. It went away in a week or so but had she done that to the whole sand bed the toxins released from mass die off would probably crash the tank. Jmo

 

[cloak]

Here's a somewhat current shot of my 20 gallon tank at about 8 years old. I only have about an inch of sand in this tank, but the substrate is full of life. All tap water, no refugium, no ATS, no GFO, no GAC etc.



Here's what it looks after I take a power head and stir up the entire substrate. (about once every month) I'm able to keep pretty much all of the micro fauna this way. I've been doing this since the tank was first set up back in 2008. It's amazing what a little elbow grease can accomplish sometimes. Those worms, pods etc are no slouches either.

 

[Wiz]

That is a lot of gunk! No fuge or anything? Thats impressive

Here's a somewhat current shot of my 20 gallon tank at about 8 years old. I only have about an inch of sand in this tank, but the substrate is full of life. All tap water, no refugium, no ATS, no GFO, no GAC etc.



Here's what it looks after I take a power head and stir up the entire substrate. (about once every month) I'm able to keep pretty much all of the micro fauna this way. I've been doing this since the tank was first set up back in 2008. It's amazing what a little elbow grease can accomplish sometimes. Those worms, pods etc are no slouches either.

 

[AZDesertRat]

In order to have a functioning DSB it needs to be 4-5" deep or deeper so it can support anaerobic and anoxic bacteria . Anaerobic bacteria will not live in great numbers in a shallow sand bed as there is too much oxygen present unlike deep in a bed. It is best to with make it deep and leave it alone so you don't disturb the bacteria which consumes the detritus or make it shallow and vacuum the heck out of it to remove the detritus.
My 5-6" deep, 330 lb Southdown DSB is over 13 years old, never been disturbed other than the top 1/4" in small sections at a time and nitrates are undetectable.

 

[Lonny]

The anaerobic bacteria is the bacteria that turns nitrate into nitrogen gas truly completing the cycle. Is that correct? I read about but it's been awhile.