Whos removed their sandbeds?

[Ben1]

What happened after you removed the bed. Did it help the tank? Hurt it? How did you do it? Why?

Atleast vote in the poll, I am considering bare bottom with high flow to keep all the detritus suspended.

 

[Anonymous]

The tank is MUCH better, (I had a sea of green flowing hair algae that grew right up the branches of my sps while I was trying everything to fix my water quality, daily water changes, changing RO membrane, running carbon, siphoning hair algae several times/week ect.) but it is hard to say because I have made other changes, such as adding a closed loop that has greatly increased flow, got my CA reactor up and working well, but I really believe that removing the sandbed did the trick, my corals and anemone are recovering, what was left of them that is.

 

[Anonymous]

I took one out for more space in the water column. Now the tank has the same algea probems as before. . . Maybe because I don't do as many water changes as I should.

There's only some ricordias and some shrooms in the tank, so I'm not too concerned.

B

 

[Shinken]

I have to say that this poll wont show much. The sand bed might be set up properly or might not for instance. other factors come into consideration. soooooooooooooooo many factors!

False votes!

Correct or non correct setup!!

Changes in livestock!!!

Changes in feeding!!!!

Changes in equipment!!!!!

False votes!!!!!!

 

[Anonymous]

I am going to remove mine next week. I have had it with the hair algae.

I probably never set mine up correctly so there is the root of my problem.

I have tried adding a second DI filter to my RO/DI - 0 TDS.
I added a closed loop.
I tried kalk.
Changed my bulbs.
large water changes, frequent water changes.

The DSB has kept my nitrates at 0 but the tank is a mess.

I am also changing allot of equipment when I do this. Some say that you should only change one thing at a time to see what the problem is but I have had it.

I am changing my skimmer, adding more flow and adding a kalk reactor.
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[SpecialK]

I took the Sand bed out of my 300 and I love it. I found less alage problems in the tank since the sandbed was removed in Feb.

I took it out because the tank is acrylic and it was just to hard to clean with a sandbed, it scratches. Plus I wanted more flow with out blowing substrate around.

I purchased garbage cans & filled with water from the tank (some had LR, Corals, fish) Put the fish seperate from all rock so they would not get hurt.
When the tank was empty I took a wet vac and sucked the sandbed out, I took my hose rinsed and sucked any extra out.
I than started to refill the tank with the water from the garbage cans, placing LR back (swish them around in the garbage cans to get any extra substrate off & towards the very end I placed the fish back in.
Make sure the rock sits in the water and not in the air. I have been much happier with my tank since, I did not loose any corals or fish in the change.
My 90 had a DSB for 3 years and I just removed that 1 1/2 weeks ago, so far so good. My 90 is glass so I had to put something down incase a rock fallsl it will not crack the bottom. I used slate some people use starboard (its like cutting board material).
The only thing added to the tank since taking out the sandbed was a large pump & that would have blown the substrate all over.

Kaye

 

[Ben1]

Posted: 22 Jun 2004 08:23 Post subject:

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I have to say that this poll wont show much. The sand bed might be set up properly or might not for instance. other factors come into consideration. soooooooooooooooo many factors!

False votes!

Correct or non correct setup!!

Changes in livestock!!!

Changes in feeding!!!!

Changes in equipment!!!!!

False votes!!!!!!

Yes this poll is just about as usefull as your post, but isn't supposed to be scientific. Show me a poll on RDO or RC that is scientific!

 

[Ben1]

BTW, Rob if you want my myreefcreations kalk reactor I am selling it. I am going to go with a pump design instead of stir bar. The stir bar is a pain.

I removed some of my bed yesterday. About 1" on one side of the tank. I am thinking about going with a shallow 1" sandbed just for looks.

 

[Anonymous]

I just bought a Precision Kalk reactor (pump style). Thanks anyway.

If the myreefcreations reactor is like the skimmer I can unserstand.
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apollo mist pics

 

[Unarce]

I am thinking about going with a shallow 1" sandbed just for looks.

Good choice! There's value in the amount of light that sand beds reflect back up and that it won't be just for looks. A 1" sandbed could be just as functional as a 6" DSB without all the headache that DSB's bring. :wink:

 

[DonJasper]

I removed some of my bed yesterday. About 1" on one side of the tank. I am thinking about going with a shallow 1" sandbed just for looks.

So how often will you vacuum your tank to keep it clean?

Can you just run a coil denitrator to replace the DSB I wonder? Wonder if the DSB processes other 'stuff' other than nitrates?

 

[Ben1]

So far IME a DSB collects ditritus very fast. It seems to me that although a DSB can keep nitrates at 0 they leach off P02 very slowly causing problems.

On the other hand I had a Very DSB in a 40 tall for about 5 years and that tank ran like a charm and almost nver had an issue.

I don't think vacuuming the bed is the way to go as this would dessimate my large spagetti worm population. I do think stirring the bed before every water change on one side of the tank, say 25% each time you do a water change can slow the build up of ditritus in deeper beds and maybe prevent it in shallow beds.

 

[Anonymous]

So far IME a DSB collects ditritus very fast. It seems to me that although a DSB can keep nitrates at 0 they leach off P02 very slowly causing problems.

.

I agree, when I removed my sandbed, there were layers embedded in it that I can only describe as mud. Maybe I should have been vaccuuming it, I don't know. I still have a very small (30 gal tank) deep sand bed plumbed into my system, I vaccuumed part of it and noticed that the area I cleaned had MORE worm tracks than before in a few days, so I kind of think occasional vaccuuming once a bed gets older, may be a good idea.

 

[DonJasper]

So far IME a DSB collects ditritus very fast. It seems to me that although a DSB can keep nitrates at 0 they leach off P02 very slowly causing problems.

Just curious: What are you going to use to export nitrates then?

 

[Unarce]

So far IME a DSB collects ditritus very fast. It seems to me that although a DSB can keep nitrates at 0 they leach off P02 very slowly causing problems.

Just curious: What are you going to use to export nitrates then?

Other possibilities are with algae, bivalves, or xenia. Any combination of any of these methods with a shallow sand bed will take care of nitrates.

Here's my template on sand beds:

If you were to set up a reef tank with high current, than there would be a lot of bare areas if you had a SB less than an inch high. 2-3 inches is the absolute best way to go. It would be incorrect to claim that a sand bed provides 'more capacity to nitrify and denitrify' simply because it's deeper.

"As much as 70 to 90 percent of the overall denitrification was located in the uppermost centimeter. The remainder was found at 1-3 cm depth"

-T.K. Anderson 1984 "Diurnal Variations of Nitrogen Cycling in Coastal, Marine Sediments."

"anaerobic habitat can be as small as 1mm, that aerobic and anaerobic bacteria essentially coexist, and that as little as 0.08mm distance is sufficient for nitrification and denitrification to take place simultaneously."

-Ecology and Evolution in Anoxic Worlds. Oxford University Press, Fenchel, T. and B.J. Finlay. 1995.

The misunderstanding is that areas with low levels of oxygen are a must for denitrification. Since we now know that aerobic and anaerobic bacteria exist together in the upper portion of the SB, than the heavy oxygen levels of our tanks would not be a factor. It's unlikely that denitrification will occur in the deep areas of a DSB, especially if nitrates never reach it in the first place.

I'd also like to point out that a deeper sand bed doesn't necesarily equate to more biodiversity of life. A shallow sand bed of numerous grain-size will create a number of different environments housing more life than a DSB.

 

[Ben1]

I also feel denitrification will occur in the live rock, along with some in the shallow bed. Water changes will do the rest in this system. I am moving the tank to the basement around christmas time and plan on going to the 220 gallon range and using the current 150 as a sump/refugium. The refugium will have a shallow 1-2" bed of mixed grain sands and the main tank will be bare bottom.

 

[hillbilly]

I plan on tearing down 3 smaller tanks and moving the contents to a 200gal. I plan on setting up in the fall. All that sand from those 3 tanks will be disposed of. I'm really tired of the whole DSB thing. The new tank is going to be bare bottom, with super heavy skimming, and tons of flow with Tunze streams baby! I plan on removing crap, rather than running a mini sewage treatment plant!

 

[Anonymous]

Hillbilly, this is what I am planning when I set up my 300G.

What are you planning to do with the bottom of the tank to make it look better than just plain glass?

Louey

 

[hillbilly]

I think I'm going to use starboard Louey.

 

[Unarce]

I wonder if anyone has tried lining the bottom with a thin layer of homemade live rock mix. It would certainly appear natural and hold up live rock pretty well.