DSB maintenance, cleanup, preservation

[blind1993]

Skriz;87198 wrote: Mixing CC with sand is generally not a good idea. Mising different sands is fine.

I have kept a DSB for 10 years. This is what you have in nature, so I strongly believe that they are a good thing for the tank. You just have to make sure you have some sort f power backup incase of power failure, otherwise the life in the sand will outcompete the other livestock.

I don't believe that "stirring" the sand is neccesarily good. If you are going to do this, I would waft over the sand letting the water lift the detirius up rather than digging in the sand. This way the deterius is suspended in the water column and not pushed into the sand bed. Natural sand sifters do a good job (goby, etc.), but you have to be carfule of your sand selection. THe finer the sand, the easier it is on the sifters, however, too fine will result in a very cloudy tank (had that it mine with very fine sand and a diamond goby).

Nassiruis snails and conchs will also clean the sand. Although, this will depend on how much real estate you have and how many snails you want in your system. Good thing about the nasarius snails is that they stay burried, so they're not an eyesore. Conchs are cool looking, so you want to see them. Most tanks will probably only need 1 or 2 max (conch).

If you have the access, you can vaccum the sand when doing a wc. this would also work, although I can't be bothered to do that since my tank is too tall!

hth

he is right i did that and now i am syphoning the sand out since i cant syphon out cc. trust me just go with 1 kind it will look alot better.

 

[jefft]

theplatypus;87431 wrote: Exactly.

<span style="color: black;">My display tank has a shallow sand bed the highest point being 2" or less and my fuge has up to 7". During power outages (which do not happen very often at my place) I have battery powered aerators that come on and a battery power pack that runs a very small PH in the display tank. If push comes to shove, I also have a generator that I can bring up if needed.</span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"> </span></span>

 

[theplatypus]

jefft;87486 wrote: <span style="color: black;">My display tank has a shallow sand bed the highest point being 2" or less and my fuge has up to 7". During power outages (which do not happen very often at my place) I have battery powered aerators that come on and a battery power pack that runs a very small PH in the display tank. If push comes to shove, I also have a generator that I can bring up if needed.</span>

You could also get a battery backup.

 

[jefft]

theplatypus;87490 wrote: You could also get a battery backup.

The pumps will drain most battery backups quickly. Also remember to keep any large battery setups away from seawater. Any submariners can tell you what that produces. Talking about lead-acid batteries not D cells.

 

[theplatypus]

jefft;87493 wrote: The pumps will drain most battery backups quickly. Also remember to keep any large battery setups away from seawater. Any submariners can tell you what that produces. Talking about lead-acid batteries not D cells.

I should have been clear, but I was referring to using pheads on battery backup. Obviously 500 watts of light and large pumps will exhaust a battery in no time.

 

[jefft]

Okay, my lights are out during power outages.

 

[schwaggs]

I've been running a SSB with a plenum in all my tanks for 10+ years. I have the egg crate with fiberglass screening over it with 3" or so of medium grain aragonite sand on top of that. I never cleaned the sand untill moving from my original 90 to my current 210 system. I started the 210 with all new sand and cleaned the sand from the 90 by "washing" it with the water from the 90 and water change water from the 210. I put the washed sand back in the 90 as the refugium for the 210. I have a sand sifting star in the 210 along with some sand sifting snails and a pistol shrimp/goby pair that keep things stirred up on one end of the tank.

I never really clean the sand as part of my regular maintainance. I do, however, have quite a bit of water movement in the system that moves some (most hopefully) of the detritus into the sump where it settles out in a 4 foot long 55 gallon tank. I siphon the detritus out from there. This system has been running for 2 years now with great success. All of the live rock from my 90, some of which was been in an aquarium for 15 years, is in this system. None of it was ever "cooked". No offense to those who believe in it but I think "old tank" syndrome, in a lot of cases, is an excuse for bad husbandry causing a tank crash.

Also, real aragonite sand IS NOT crushed coral - from the almighty wikipedia - Aragonite is a carbonate mineral, one of the two common, naturally occurring polymorphs of calcium carbonate, CaCO3. The other is the mineral calcite. Its crystal lattice differs from that of calcite, resulting in a different crystal shape, an orthorhombic system with acicular crystals. Repeated twinning results in pseudo-hexagonal forms. Aragonite may be columnar or fibrous, occasionally in branching stalactitic forms called flos-ferri ("flowers of iron") from their association with the ores at the Carthinian iron mines. The type location for aragonite is Molina de Aragón (Guadalajara, Spain), 25 km outside Aragon. An aragonite cave, the Ochtinská Aragonite Cave, is situated in Slovakia. In the USA, stalactitic aragonite is known from Carlsbad Caverns. Massive deposits of oolitic aragonite are found on the seabed in the Bahamas.

 

[skriz]

Patrick214;87372 wrote: Also, when you say that animals in the sandbed will outcompete others, are you implying that the sand animals would deprive the system of any free floating O2 significantly faster than a system without a DSB would??

Yep! MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SOME SORT OF BACKUP (oops, caps lock alert!).

I have never changed my sand. I agree with Scwaggs, in that the old tank syndrome is a cop out and excuse for poor husbandry. As long as you keep things in check, you won't have to worry about it. With cc, you will have to worry about it because the detirious will collect.

 

[dakota9]

True, a DSB is going to depleat the tank of O2 quicker, but it still can go hours without power. I dont have a battery back up, and never have. If I got desperate, I guess I could use the air pump from my car that runs from the cigarette lighter, LOL.

The guest speaker at the last meeting sited that as the reason he doesn't run a DSB, but come on...... who's power goes out for 6 hours at a time? How often does that happen? It hasn't happened to me yet, that being said, my power will probably go off before I finish writing thi

 

[theplatypus]

[who's power goes out for 6 hours at a time? How often does that happen?/quote]


Pretty much every time we get one of those wonderful ice storms.

 

[dakota9]

Oh, you silly suburbanites..... I forgot about that problem!

White pine cracks like cheap glass, and usually takes a few power lines on its way to the ground. We don't have that problem in the city, as what trees are left are old growth hardwoods.

Last icestorm, my sis's family caravaned from their huge house in cumming to all stay in my small bungalo until their power came back on a day and a half later.....

 

[patrick214]

What if I were to siphon the all the CC that makes it to the top of the sandbed during water changes....I mean the CC is at the bottom of the DSB and is not very thick I imagine that I could control the amount of CC on the top of the substrate since this is the only area it really would be trapping in detritus..i'm not entirely sure about that however correct me if i'm wrong..

 

[theplatypus]

Dakota9;87648 wrote: Oh, you silly suburbanites..... I forgot about that problem!

White pine cracks like cheap glass, and usually takes a few power lines on its way to the ground. We don't have that problem in the city, as what trees are left are old growth hardwoods.

Last icestorm, my sis's family caravaned from their huge house in cumming to all stay in my small bungalo until their power came back on a day and a half later.....

The funny thing is you're the suburbanite, I actually live in Atlanta.

 

[skriz]

Patrick214;87649 wrote: What if I were to siphon the all the CC that makes it to the top of the sandbed during water changes....I mean the CC is at the bottom of the DSB and is not very thick I imagine that I could control the amount of CC on the top of the substrate since this is the only area it really would be trapping in detritus..i'm not entirely sure about that however correct me if i'm wrong..

you'll have to scoop it. If you syphon, you'll end up pulling your sand out, not the cc!

If you only have a small amount of cc, it may work for you...you never know. I am just not a fan of the stuff. I've used it (on my first tank), and I would much rather use silica sand from HD than the cc (used that too)

 

[dakota]

Don't sweat it, dude.

No detritus will ever make it thru all that sand to get trapped in the CC on the bottom... unless you really, really stir up your sandbed during water changes.

And no CC will ever migrate thru all that sand to get to the top of your sandbed... unless you really, really stir up your sandbed during water changes.

Leave it alone. Forget about it. Enjoy your tank.