Advice on sandbeds

[deadeye]

I'm looking for advice on how deep my sand bed should be. I've read about deep sand beds and authors seem to have conflicting opinions. I have had water in my 125 gallon for 1 week now and I hope to add livestock in Jan. I have about 4" of coarse sand (may be fine crushed coral) in my display and I'm thinking of removing some to place it in my 15 gallon refugium. I would like to hear from members who have experience with sand beds of different depths. I realize that with a deep sand bed I would need sand sifting stars and snails and would also like a watchman goby, but is it worth it? Thanks in advance, I'm looking forward to learning from your experience.

 

[strapingyunglad]

for the clean realistic look id say its worth it. and you probobly sholdnt get a sand sifter because they dont eat detritus they eats pods and other things that yoku NEED to have a healthy DSB. Id say jsut get lots of cerith snails that should do the trick. ny the way my dsb is between 3 and 4 inches and healthy as ever.

 

[theplatypus]

strapingyunglad;255993 wrote: for the clean realistic look id say its worth it. and you probobly sholdnt get a sand sifter because they dont eat detritus they eats pods and other things that yoku NEED to have a healthy DSB. Id say jsut get lots of cerith snails that should do the trick. ny the way my dsb is between 3 and 4 inches and healthy as ever.

huh?

 

[xyzpdq0121]

A deep sand bed HAS to be more then 3" and should be above 4". Remember, you are going to loose about 1" of volume every year.. So if you start with 4", in a year you will need to SLOWLY (read: over the course of a month) add another 1" to make up for the loss....


I am a true believer in DSBs. I think they look better, I think they perform better... I am just a fan of them.

One word of advice, skip the sand sifting star... You most likely will not get him enough food in an established tank (running longer then a year) much less a new tank. And any food that you do get down there is stuff you want so a sand star kinda is counter productive. They sure are cool though, they just do not live!

As for the gobies, the smaller gain of sands would be better but you should be able to get away with med grain. As long as it is not crushed coral and shells.

 

[deadeye]

Thanks fot the advice guys, I'll increase the level in the display to 5" and do the same with the fuge. I'm cycling my tank with 60 lbs. of un-cured live rock and I came home to a brown alge bloom on the rocks. I'm guessing this is part of the process as the alge is probably feeding off the decay. I am running my display lights at three 250watt M.H. 10 hrs a day, four 96watt high output actinic at 12 hours a day. I'm running them for the benifit of the live rock, should I cut back on the hours? I've also been doing water changes, does this promote or impede the cycling of the tank? My parimeters after 6 days are;
nitrite -2.0 nitrate - 3.0 ph - 8.06 alk - 3.5
free ammonia - 0 total ammonia - 0.08 salt - 1.025 temp - 79.1 Thanks for the input.

 

[photokid]

no real need for a water change just yet, let it sit and do its thing.

 

[xyzpdq0121]

ares;256019 wrote: hey pres, do you think that maintaining high calcium levels can assist in reducing DSB losses? seems like thats kind of what we do in a calcium reactor(if I have a grasp on that lol). so if we are rapidly dissolving aragonite in there, maybe it wont dissolve as much in the tank.

You know I have never seen any side by side comparisons between a tank with a CA reactor and one without. I do not run a CA reactor. It makes logical sense though. I doubt it will halt the break down of your sand bed (there are more things then just the breakdown into CA that cause sand bed dissipation) but I would bet it will slow it down quite a bit.

 

[xyzpdq0121]

deadeye;256073 wrote: Thanks fot the advice guys, I'll increase the level in the display to 5" and do the same with the fuge. I'm cycling my tank with 60 lbs. of un-cured live rock and I came home to a brown alge bloom on the rocks. I'm guessing this is part of the process as the alge is probably feeding off the decay. I am running my display lights at three 250watt M.H. 10 hrs a day, four 96watt high output actinic at 12 hours a day. I'm running them for the benifit of the live rock, should I cut back on the hours? I've also been doing water changes, does this promote or impede the cycling of the tank? My parimeters after 6 days are;
nitrite -2.0 nitrate - 3.0 ph - 8.06 alk - 3.5
free ammonia - 0 total ammonia - 0.08 salt - 1.025 temp - 79.1 Thanks for the input.

Ya, no real need for a water change just yet, save your salt. One could make an argument that water changes during the cycle could impede the cycle but I doubt anyone knows for sure.. They just are of no real benefit As for the algae, totally normal. You might want to cut your light s back a bit just to save on the power bill. I would go with about 5-6 hours.

 

[skriz]

I would cut your lights down big time. There's just not much need for it at this stage.

I started with a 6" dsb and it has worked beutifully for me. As Brandon said, it has disentegrated over the years.

 

[deadeye]

Thanks to all. I'll cut my light hours in half, increase my sand bed, and stop the water changes untill my tank cycles. My hat is off to all of you especially those who operate this site. I truley enjoy coming here.