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Anonymous

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No,
It would be to your benefit, however to find some detrivors (worms, pods, etc) either by purchasing some livesand to seed with or stealing a cupfull of someone elses established DSB or buying a detrivore kit.

ty

[ October 23, 2001: Message edited by: tyoberg ]</p>
 

bezzer

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The answer I got to a similar question was that yes, you can have just a DSB without LR.
The only thing you will need to do if the sand is not "live" is seed it.
I let the SD sand in my 65 gallon be seeded with the life from my LR instead of purchasing one of those kits or getting a sample of live sand from local reefers.
HTH,
Brian
 

chris_h

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I say you can. The coral skeletons will eventually become live rock, and the sand will provide adaquete filtration.
 
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Anonymous

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Live sand is not married in any way to the live rock, one functions without the other just fine. You will need to seed the sand though and it will take some months for it to become efficient.
Jim
 

olgakurt

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IMO, deep sand beds work better with little rock and more grasses/macros- unless you have a large tank where the rock doesn't detract from the available bed area.

You get more surface area and can get better flow across the bed when you minimize the rock area.

The disadvantage is you lose some of the diversity that you can get with the rock/rock habitat.
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Anonymous

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sorry about the confusion--i agree w/ everyone else. the answer to the question in the subject line is yes. the answer to the question in the body is no.

Ty
 

Josh's Reef

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will there be any kind of a chemical spike? nitrate nitrite or amonia?
The other question is will bio balls have a bad effect on the sand like it would LR?
 
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Anonymous

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Just adding clean sand will have no effect or spike. Bio-balls will not have an effect on the sand bed per se, but your nitrates will go down after the sand bed establishes itself.
Jim
 

chris_h

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<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by olgakurt:
<strong>IMO, deep sand beds work better with little rock and more grasses/macros- unless you have a large tank where the rock doesn't detract from the available bed area.

You get more surface area and can get better flow across the bed when you minimize the rock area.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I never understood why people say that. The purpose of the DSB compared to a shallow sand bed is to create low oxygen areas for the bacteria. So covering the sand bed with rocks or reducing the flow across bed will not hurt the sand but help it by reduceing the oxygen level, which is the goal of a deep sand bed. Ultimately when live rock is covering the sand it reduces the required depth of sand needed to creat low oxygen areas, and in doing so saves you money.
 

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