Is 4-5 too deep for sand?

[typemismatch]

Hello!

So I'm finally getting out of the "red phase" of my tank - I think my water was too sanitized. I removed about 70% of the external media, carbon, lowered the GFO etc and started dosing a lot more plankton for corals and feed more. Tank looks amazing....however

during this I discovered my sand bed is actually 4-5" deep vs the 2-3" I thought it was.

Any concerns?

Thanks

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[lsu_fishfan]

Probably not bad.

Your running a dsb (deep and bed) filter. So there is anaerobic bacteria colonizing in the sand and consuming nutrients in the water (nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur?, not 100% sure). As the bacteria consumes the nutrients they are leaving other harmful deposites in the sand (mainly sulfur?).

The only bad part of utilizing the dsb is that when large portion of the sand are stirred up, the toxins are released and can cause a mini cycle. This can result in lower oxygen levels in the water that can kill fish and release toxins that can be harmful to coral.

If you have fish that sift the sand along with a cuc that turns over the sand, the toxins are slowly released and not in harmful doses.

 

[jennm]

IMO yes, it's too deep. At the very least, keep it vacuumed weekly.

The 'deep sand bed' fad was very short-lived because people had tanks crashing after about 3 years or so. It's easy enough to prevent issues - just remove some of the sand.

Jenn

 

[dball711]

JennM;1081146 wrote: IMO yes, it's too deep. At the very least, keep it vacuumed weekly.

The 'deep sand bed' fad was very short-lived because people had tanks crashing after about 3 years or so. It's easy enough to prevent issues - just remove some of the sand.

Jenn

Agree, 1/2" to 1" is plenty but any sand bed needs to be kept clean (vacuming). My concern was how to clean under the rocks, I went bare bottom a year ago and will never go back, much less maintence and I have a much cleaner tank.

 

[typemismatch]

yeah and I totally forgot in my previous tanks I never really had sand ... now I remember why ... arggh ok well I'll slowly start removing it. Will leave a corner for the goby.

 

[jennm]

I always put the rock directly on the glass, then the sand around the rocks - thin layer, 3/4" to 1" max. And yes - all sand should be vacuumed. Everything poops - even sand janitors, and gravity is a law -so sooner or later it all ends up in the sand.

Putting the rock on the glass reduced or even eliminates the risk of rockslides too because there is no sand underneath to unexpectedly shift.

Jenn