Sandbed in refugium?

cveverly · Aug 5, 2009

I am building a 160 gallon tank with a 55 gallon refugium.

I am thinking about putting the live sand for my refugium in containers so it can be removed if needed. I have room for 6 (maybe 9) gallon jugs cut in half giving me about 5-6" of sand in each container. I did something like this on a smaller tank but I have outgrown the tank before seeing any good or bad results of the idea.

Is this idea good, bad or damnifiknow?

cveverly · Aug 6, 2009

Anyone see a down side to doing this. Once I get the tank going I don't want to empty the containers and cause a sand storm.

stunreefer · Aug 7, 2009

It will work in terms of aiding as a buffer, but I'm going to ask, why do you want to add the sand?

Love your avatar BTW!

cveverly · Aug 7, 2009

stunreefer said:
It will work in terms of aiding as a buffer, but I'm going to ask, why do you want to add the sand?

Love your avatar BTW!

I am thinking it will help export nutrients from the overall system acting as a remote DSB. Maybe my thought process is flawed?

stunreefer · Aug 7, 2009

cveverly said:
I am thinking it will help export nutrients from the overall system acting as a remote DSB. Maybe my thought process is flawed?

Nope, not at all. Personally I use sandbeds strictly for beneficial bacteria colonization rather than "sponging." A DSB will "buffer" your tank, in that it will sponge out nutrients. Problem is... they fill up!

Any sandbed, be it shallow or deep will provide great areas for bacterial colonization, past that I rely on my skimmer, weekly water changes, and carbon dosing. DSB is another way to skin a cat

What you propsed will work, but I could see potential issues with excess detrius building up between the containers over time. Assuming you vaccum it out, or remove in some other means it's just fine. You could also just nix the containers and lay down a sandbed and remove if/when necessary.

gilmour01 · Aug 7, 2009

if you're using some sort of mineral mud, using the containers would make it much easier/cleaner to change out portions of the bed. most of the people that sell refugium mud recommend changing out portions of it every so often.

cveverly · Aug 7, 2009

No mud, just a good grade of sand. I was thinking I could rotate the containers out keeping them from "filling up". You have a good point about build up between the containers. I may add a small powerhead to keep things moving a little.

So am I on the right track? Or just skip the sand all together?

Russellaqua · Aug 7, 2009

I like the idea of sand. The more beneficial bacteria the better.

stunreefer · Aug 7, 2009

IMO it depends on the rest of your system, with that said it can't hurt assuming you remove it if it begins to "leach" crap back into your system, but we're talking 5+ years down the line...

A simple solution to detrius build-up would be to weekly take a MJ powerhead (or similar) and just blow everything into suspension... it might cause a bit of initial cloudiness, but the corals will all go nuts and begin to feed off of it, and the cloudiness will go away very quickly.

cveverly · Aug 7, 2009

Thanks for the input. I am a little guy shy hearing about DSBs going south and crashing.

I think I will put 6 containers of 6" deep sand in the refugium and leave a lot of space between the containers. Add a powerhead to keep the crud from being trapped. If the sand starts to leach back into the tank I can remove them without disturbing the sand and causing a toxic melt down.

cveverly · Aug 7, 2009

stunreefer said:
Love your avatar BTW!

Kind of off topic but thanks. We raise Papillons so that is why I have that avatar.

DaveA · Aug 7, 2009

stunreefer said:
Nope, not at all. Personally I use sandbeds strictly for beneficial bacteria colonization rather than "sponging." A DSB will "buffer" your tank, in that it will sponge out nutrients. Problem is... they fill up!

Any sandbed, be it shallow or deep will provide great areas for bacterial colonization, past that I rely on my skimmer, weekly water changes, and carbon dosing. DSB is another way to skin a cat

What you propsed will work, but I could see potential issues with excess detrius building up between the containers over time. Assuming you vaccum it out, or remove in some other means it's just fine. You could also just nix the containers and lay down a sandbed and remove if/when necessary.

Many experts disagree with this statement. Here are the thoughts of a prominent expert in the reef field: DeepSandBeds