HELP with DEEEEEP sand bed fuge idea

[wt*jayjay]

Picked up a 55g drum from reeferj a few days ago. I plan on plumbing it into my 145g tank that will have a 75g sump and a 75g "frag tank" (mainly just extra water volume for now) all plumbed together. After a lot of rock and sand im thinking it will be about 200 gallons total.

Anyway reeferj and i got to talking about what i was going to use the 55g drum for. I had mainly just planned on using it to hold an extra 100+lbs of rock and a ton a macro algae. Basically just a huge fuge. And he mentioned putting in a deep sand bed. Ive hard good and bad things about them but ive never had one more then 4" in my old small fuge. Iv'e read a ton of articles on them and still not sure if its a good idea or not. Im talking about 10''-12'' of sand with all the live rock on top of it. As far as flow there will be a max of 600gph going through the drum and i can make the water enter and exit where ever i please using bulkheads. Also since id have some micro algae floating around on top of the rocks naturally ill have a light on it.... but ive also read not only do you not want the DSB disturbed by high current, gobbies, and other big digging critters, but you want it to have no light at all.. so would the fuge light be a bad idea??

Just looking for some input so fire away!

 

[wt*jayjay]

thank for the input guys! and assault you make a very valid point about now having equipment that does the same thing and being much easier to break down and such if there is a problem. id hate for the DBS to have an issue (for what ever reason) and when i just say screw it and want to take it out, it would be a bit of a pain to take out all the rock and dig out the 50lbs+ of nasty sand..

ive also though about getting a BRS GFO/Carbon reactor and just filling both tubes with aragonite with verry slow flow going through it.

 

[reeferj]

I was never really sure why you should keep a DSB dark, but after thick macro growth and live rock, I dont think the sand will see much light. Soon enough that drum will have some heavy dietrus build up, and I think the large surface area of the sand at the bottom would help out. Maybe a few sand sifting stars and nass snails to keep the top couple inches turned over?

 

[roundman]

Not to hijack this thread but this is the second time I have seen where someone said to keep a deep sand bed dark. Why? I do not see a benefit either way. If it is at the bottom of a fuge it is going to get light even if it is indirect..

 

[jbadd99]

http://www.linomareefs.com/viewtopic.php?t=715">This example</a> is what I'm going to use if I do ever decide to do a DSB with my tank.

Your post reminded me of it, so maybe you could find a way to do something similar.

 

[weaglereefer]

A remote deep sand bed should be kept dark, since there won't be any macros.

 

[reeferj]

Also, if you go any deeper than 6-7" I think it would be a waste of sand. and nevermind on the sand sifter stars. after a little more reading, you want a healthy pop of worms to allow oxygen into deeper layers of sand. I think sand sifting stars will eat those worms you want.

 

[basscyn]

You gonna do a Cryptic fuge?
I plan to do one too...one of these days. I even got a tank to tie into my system. Just havent done it yet. Great for growing sponges and tunicates.