6 year old DSB in an SPS tank you wont believe your eyes

I have the same issue as True...all of my SPS are dying. Lost massive colonies and the ones I have left are dying every day..plus pale. My issues are as follows.

I don't know how to clean/remove my sand bed and my tank is a 120 (2' deep I think plus the stand) How do I suck that stuff out?

I would rather just clean the sand bed, but It's infested with "ostracods" so I want it all removed and I think I'd prefer to try bare bottom and never have this issue again. Any issues with this? I'm going to remove it (after I figure out how...maybe a 1" hose and syphon it out?) over a period of time. Maybe 1/8 at a time and do water changes, filter socks, gfo & carbon.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2237047

Not trying to highjack a thread (which is a very good one) but I think my issue is in line with the OP. Advice is more than appreciated.
 
S2minute said:
Some folks just don't have the room to remotely locate a DSB. With others it would take a drastic effort to redo. So, after you face the reality of it, what do you do? Do you want to be successful? Is it worth the extra effort?

More than likely your already neck deep into your investment of time and money. SO...why no more effort? Make all that time and $ pay off. Once you face the reality of what it's going to take to construct a DSB correctly, just do it. There are lots of ways. As i stated before, my DSB is remotely located. At best, it receives only ambient room light so what can grow on it? The only food it receives is what either is residual food that makes it in after i feed the DT, what makes it in after a 200 micron filter sock does it's job and whatever Detritus floats down onto it from the LR above. I never clean it, not for years until i switched out 5 compartments which i don't feel i had to do.
Also, there are NO sand sifters of any kind introduced. The DSB remains untouched, undisturbed and CLEAN w/o any effort from myself. Once in a while I remove the black plastic shielding the DSB from light to take a look. No Black areas to indicate H2S and never any rotten egg smell. I believe it's success is due to the sand grain size and texture, no light, no sand sifters and NO me messing with it all the time.
Two days ago i tested for NO3. On the low range, undectable. Last week i used a hanna U/L checker for Po4...8 ppb which is about .024 ppm. I feed hvy at times. Two days ago it was 16 ppb. i treated with LC and then a 50 gal WC as standard 1-2 weekly. I installed my DSB in this manner because i believe it will help me create a more extensive environment for life. Why not? It's that way in nature. You just have to take some extra steps to do it beacuse of the closed systems we have. Hanna checker reading just in: 7 ppb which is .021 ppm :D not to shabby.
Click to expand...

Yea what he said. One of my sand beds is about 10 years old. It has been moved once about 6 years ago. Moved, not cleaned. As my fish have grown in the last couple of years I have been having to work harder to control nutrients. About 5 months ago I added another remote DSB. This time I went large. After 5 months the old sand bed which wasn't able to keep up before has cleaned up substantially . The new sand bed has cycled and the corals look much better. Its a numbers game people. If your sand bed is not keeping up and you have a proper design , grain size correct and lots of biodiversity then decrease your nutrient input or increase your nutrient export. If you are putting in more than your system can keep up with then it will back up and you will have problems. If you are putting in less than your system can consume then it will clear up. Simple stuff if your design is right.
 
trueblackpercula, have You already tried increasing your nitrogen?

More than one time I've read of people with PO4 issue and zero nitrate. Administering nitrate lead to PO4 decrease.

I wouldn't suggest You directly to do that, but maybe your main problem is the lack of nitrogen. You should evaluate if feed more or really use NaNO3 or KNO3.

What's your photoperiod? Light is very effective in decrease nutrients, maybe You have too much of that.
Once corals are starving, it really takes lot of time to recover and see some improvement.
 
Just a detail. Most of time I've heard of cyano outbreak with zero nitrate, raising this lead to cyano disappear.

3 days with lights off in my opinion lead to nitrogen increase and cyano disappear. When lights come back BTW, if the situation remain the same, nitrogen quickly come back to zero and cyano come back.

Maybe 3 days dark, followed by a significant light reduction (intensity and/or duration) and feed increase could be effective.

Even redsea care program well explain to keep nitrate detectable to avoid cyano outbreak.

Hope it could help.

Luca
 
Ink said:
trueblackpercula, have You already tried increasing your nitrogen?

More than one time I've read of people with PO4 issue and zero nitrate. Administering nitrate lead to PO4 decrease.

I wouldn't suggest You directly to do that, but maybe your main problem is the lack of nitrogen. You should evaluate if feed more or really use NaNO3 or KNO3.

What's your photoperiod? Light is very effective in decrease nutrients, maybe You have too much of that.
Once corals are starving, it really takes lot of time to recover and see some improvement.
Click to expand...

Well thank you for that advice and I reduced my lighting schedule to come on at 10am and go off at 10pm I have an led light fixture so the intensity starts at 20% and increases up to 80 % at noon for two hours then ramps down until lights go off.

As for feeding I feed pappone recipe to my sps four times a week at a rate of 5mls two hours before lights go out. I was dosing amino acids before feeding but stopped because I have read and been told that AA can fuel cyno.

My nitrates have been reading zero for a very long time and I am sure it's because the sand bed is doing its job. My PO4 ranges from 0.01 to 0.03 but I am sure it's higher then that because the algae is feeding of it faster then I can test for it.

I am going to keep everyone posted on what transpires after making repairs to the sheet rock and replacing a good portion of the sand bed in the front of e tank maybe 20 pounds.
 
Dog boy Dave said:
This guy used to have a column here on Reef central until he finally got tired of the trolls but if you wish to run a DSB you really should read his stuff. Search Ron Shimek if this link doesn't work.
http://www.ronshimek.com/deep_sand_beds.html
Click to expand...

Spoken with him many times when he was here. I also have his booklet on how to run a DSB. I sure wish I could speak with him now but he charges $5 per question and that could get costly with my issues. I already have broken one of his golden rules as my sand bed is not 4" and is not oolite sand.
 
So I have a question after I clean the sand bed and add new sand should I also add something like MB7 or Prodibio BIO DIGEST to add new strains of good bacteria or is this a bad idea?
 
I only ask this because remember my tank rocks have been in my system for almost 7 years plus. Was thinking that adding new strains of bacteria would also help. I just don't want the tank to go throw a mini cycle once the old sand is pulled out. Ya know that light brown diatom bloom that we get when adding new sand. Really like what the prodibio bio digest clams to do.lots of reviews on the web and they are all good.

Any thoughts on this?
 
Holy crap what a day, Anyone thinking about clean/removing there sand bed from an existing tank should know that its a lot of work. Well it was in my case, as my tank is 31 inches deep. Well I was able to get everything I needed at home deport to repair the sheet rock and suck up the sand bed. I pulled out about 10 pounds of the old sand bed and boy was I surprised at how deep the algae and the red cyno bacteria will go.

I managed to pull out every single bit of red cyno in the tank and even lifted a couple rocks to vacuum the sand out under them. I will tell you right now that it took me hours to do what I did and I can’t even imagine how long it would take to remove all the rocks and then the sand. No freaking way can I pull that off in a day.
I have include a video for all to see what the sand bed looks like after I removed the top layer by siphoning it. It was pure white in color like the day I put it in 6 years ago (I was very surprised ) The only problem I saw was that there are a few areas that were like solid cement and I could not remove them. I read about this a while back somewhere in a book or from Dr. Ron Shimek web page can’t remember.

In any case I hope to get two things out of this, First was fixing the sheet rock wall to see if that was one of the causes of fueling the bacteria, the second was removing as much polluted sand with Cyno bacteria on it that would not go away after trying everything ( I never tried red slim remover let that be noted) I managed to change out 15 gallons of water and 10 pounds of sand.
I was going to add back the sand that I bought today but only added two cup full’s as it clouded the water too much and I figured that the old sand was pure white so I decided against it for now. If I do have to remove the sand bed boy will I be upset. Question how does one clean new sand? with Ro/Di water or just plan old tap water.

After lots of reading I am going to start adding live bacteria strains to help combat the bad algae and have even thought about adding a Blue hippo tang down the road to assist. There is even a part of me that wants to start carbon (VSV OR HONEY) dosing again but that will have to wait longer down the road until everything stabilizes.

Enough with the boring details please view photographs and the video.

Enjoy, All my SPS look great and were not bothered by what I did from what I can see.

All that is needed is light sponge sanding and some primer.
13B491ED-F093-47F9-A2B5-77AEEFCED70D_zpseakauxcn.jpg


My prized grape juice
D17A42D1-8E6F-44F3-8647-458823FA8E8F_zpsnwkrcrdr.jpg


Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4DGstdMePQ
 
That is an awesome nasuta!

The sand bed lumping is the primary issue here IMO. It is caused by bacteria secreting sugars, glycocalyx. It smothers the sandbed and shuts down the nitrification process causing nutrients to rise.
 
Acronic said:
That is an awesome nasuta!

The sand bed lumping is the primary issue here IMO. It is caused by bacteria secreting sugars, glycocalyx. It smothers the sandbed and shuts down the nitrification process causing nutrients to rise.
Click to expand...

Thanks about the Nasuta she has grown a lot and since feeding pappone it's getting better by the day.

CN you elaborate more about the sugars being released from the sand bed? And I am assuming that by keeping the fauna in the sand bed healthy and feed is the key to maintaining a DSB.
 
UPDATE:

So its been a full week and the red Cyno bacteria Is gone that's correct gone, But I do have bad news, there were areas of the sand bed that I was to aggressive with removing the top layers only and went to deep. So there is now a brown diatom bloom on the top layer of my sand bed.I can live with this for now as this is just the same if you were starting up a new tank so i believe it will pass with the correct bacteria build up.

I did order probido bio-digest 30 vials to see what affect this has on the tank. I really think this will be a good addition to my system and will see how it goes before adding anything else. I will probably not add any GFO to see if this stuff really removes nitrates and phosphates from the tank, seeing that the rowaphos works so well really fast using both could be disastrous.

So with that said, I would advise anyone that wants to do what I did to GO FOR IT as my SPS look very happy and removing 10 pounds of sand more or less had no affect on my tanks inhabitants, with the exception that they all look happier including everything this lives in it.

I will post some new updated pictures soon.
 
Good to hear!
A little diatom algae is nuttin'
I'm curious to see what the bio digest does..
Keep us posted.
 
reefmutt said:
Good to hear!
A little diatom algae is nuttin'
I'm curious to see what the bio digest does..
Keep us posted.
Click to expand...

Thanks I will keep everyone posted on the biodigest. I dosed my first vial tonight and will continue every 15 days like it says on the box. I paid less then $25 bucks for 30 vials on marine depot. I think that's a steal for a years supply of bacteria lol. If all goes well or bad I will let everyone no ASAP, also just wanted to say my Sps are glowing with color.
 
6 year old DSB in an SPS tank you wont believe your eyes

Dog boy Dave said:
This guy used to have a column here on Reef central until he finally got tired of the trolls but if you wish to run a DSB you really should read his stuff. Search Ron Shimek if this link doesn't work.
http://www.ronshimek.com/deep_sand_beds.html
Click to expand...


:celeb3: Dog boy Dave...MY MAN! That's the book i have, read and constructed my DSB by. It's my DSB Bible! :reading: I also read Steve Tyrees CMAT and Captive Ocean Series and incorporated ideas from there. Never been happier with the DSB. Now i've got sponge growth on the DSB surface as well!
 
The worst advice I've ever gotten while keeping a reef was to never disturb the sandbed. I keep mine at 1" and stir/vacuum it once a week with water changes. Things seem much happier when I get rid of all the detritus piled up.
 
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