Deep Sand Bed?

[Jaculus]

Ok now I have your attention. lol

Currently I have two 120 gal display tanks (one FOWLR with some softies, and the other a full Reef). I have a 125 gal Sump/refugium in my basement for both display tanks. I have a HUGE SWC 250/2 skimmer, and a huge area of the sump setup running three large 6500K CFL Floodlights growing a ton of Calurpa varieties and then a Mag 12 pump feeding four BRS Canisters (one bio pellet, one Carbon, and currently two running GFO since I am having a small PO4 spike). Then a Pan World 250 pump as my return pump going through a large Lifegard UV back into the display tanks.

I used to have a poorly setup deep sand bed in my reef tank when it was a 75 gal tank. I have since moved into a 120 gal and used some rock from my old tank and mixed in with a bunch that some of you have seen that I bought from Paul West from West Mariculture. I only have a shallow bed now using more coarse sand.

His discussion at the last Csea meeting led me to thinking I needed to move my DSB into my refugium now. I have started my own research on it and determined that I am going to START moving towards this DSB in my refugium and removing the reactors over time by reducing the flow in those while the DSB gets up and running. I am also going to make a LARGER scale DIY algae scrubber.

I am just LOOKING FOR LOCAL reefers that might have done this or have been running a DSB in a refugium and also made the move away from the need for reactors and possibly so much demand on a skimmer.

I am looking for very specific experience with this rather than the "dont use DSb because it crashed my system" or similar responses. I have learned through reading the science of it that there are reasons for that including some that leaned on the DSB filtering before it had been aged and setup properly to accomadate the filtering needs of an existing system

 

[HowdyDoody216]

I ran no reactors or skimmer for 6 months, just chaeto in my sump. Just did water changes. Completely bare bottom. When I added a reactor again and a skimmer my colors improved in a week.

Last system I had sand in my display and in my fuge. I hated sand in the fuge vs barebottom because it's more maintenance. I use a shop vac for water changes and I can clean all the crud out in seconds. Syphoning Sand is a pain and you never know if you got it all. I'd rather change out media then have a time bomb in my tank.

 

[Jaculus]

But I am considering a full DSB. That's 6" or more with very specific sand sizes etc and IL those do NOT get cleaned or siphoned at all. The critters basically in the sand slowly release the nitrogen gas at a rate that is not harmful. If you don't have the critters and or you stir a true DSB up then yes you release all the nitrogen gas and the stuff that has not been broken up correctly over time and then the crashes.

I was hoping to not turn this into a DSB pros and cons chat. I'm looking for someone that has moved or transitioned from a non DSB system to a full DSB.

 

[HowdyDoody216]

It sounds like you have your mind made up and just need someone to tell you it'll work. Try it and see what happens. Myself I wouldn't want to stir anything up releasing all that up into my tank. To me it's just another place for crud to build up that cant be completely cleaned out with a water change.

 

[Jaculus]

Again though and I don't want to sound rude, really I don't. But with deep sand beds properly setup there is NO STIRING of the sand. It's left alone. The critters do all that over time.

 

[rockslide123]

Jaculus

I have done some reading over the last few months and I get what your sayng; DSBs have to be carefully designed and maintained to provide benefit otherwise they have the potential to be a disaster. I have not tried a DSB but I don't discount their value if handled with a clear understanding of the chemistry and biology. Reading between the lines of the literature I have seen it will be important to periodically replenish the clean-up crew that populates the sand to maintain a balance so no one species dominates leaving some products unprocessed. I will be interested in following your results if you will be posting them.

 

[lawdog]

Sorry... long response... I have had some success with a full DSB Mark... your correct when setup properly you DONT TOUCH IT.... you leave it alone except to fill it with the proper critters and you let the critters do the work. I have done this both in tank setup and then removed to a fuge based DSB. I did this using the same 120 you have now.

I had lots of live rock, DSB, minimal skimming, minimal water changes and no reactors and ran a great balanced system for almost 6 years this way...

However, ultimately i had the most trouble with keeping the critters up to par to handle the system volume and running out of room. Around the six year mark I started to have slow decline of my system... no matter what i did it was not flourishing. New critters, water changes...increased skimming... nothing worked... so i suspected the DSB and yanked it slowly over the course of about 3 months...

i tossed the sand and started over with a fuge based DSB and barebottom display... that worked well for a while too... chaeto grew like a weed doing this method in the fuge with the DSB... but keeping up with the critters (you have to replenish about every 6 months to really make it work IMHO)...and the resulting reality that no matter what you do eventually the DSB gets full and has to be restarted and removed and replaced just did it in for me...

Exclusive barebottom setups Display, Fuge and Sump... all BB and love it. Easy to clean and i can suck out all detritus in a 300 gallon system pulling out like 4 gallons every other week and my system reads Zeros across the board...

I do skim, but I have cut down my liverock substantially to go with a minimalist look and run GAC and GFO in a BRS reactor and just added a Nitrate Reactor as well to kill the last little bit of Nitrate I had... but they are easy self running systems.

My Magnifica Ritteri appreciates the Zero's!

I think if a DSB is setup properly you can run it successfully for a set period of time to be determined by how much you actually maintain the DSB (add critters, manual skimming water column, algae scrubber)... then just plan on a 3 year plan like remove and replace 1/3 of the DSB starting in year 3 and replace 1/3 each year so you have constant rotation of fresh sand to let the critters populate into...

 

[Jaculus]

Yeah. I read the same about over years the sand bed gets to be one specie dominant so replenishment and monitoring of the worms, brittle stars etc is necessary over long periods of time. I'm gonna keep researching though to find help on properly transitioning to a PROPER DSB though lol

 

[lawdog]

And be careful when you remove a section...not only in what you may release (do this slowly to avoid gas pockets) but in what you might find! I found a no joke 3 foot long peanut worm at the very bottom of my DSB when I yanked it... scared the bejeebs outta me. Goes to show he was well fed over the course of almost 6 years in that DSB though....

 

[lawdog]

The transition over to the DSB in the fuge I don't think will be anything too challenging... I would figure out your volume of sand to reach the DSB depth you seek and add 1/4 of that each month for up to 4 months while also adding a batch of critters each time... so by the 5 month you have the DSB to your desired depth and it should be nice and layered with bacteria and critters and they will self regulate the layer they prefer... when you top off the sand some will move up and some down in the layers... its actually pretty cool to watch a DSB teeming with life in it....

 

[Jaculus]

Well its funny you mentioned about a three year plan to swap out the deep sand bed material. my refugium is already split into two chambers. I was thinking the same thing that one chamber might need to be completely cycled out and started over leaving the other intact.

 

[rockslide123]

+1 on the periodically replacing sections of the bed

 

[lawdog]

so??? what did you decide to do?

 

[Jaculus]

I am going to put the DSB definitely in the refugium in the basement. Its big and already separated into two separate compartments. The total water displacment of that area for the DSB is over 47 gal. Once compartment is about 1/3 the total and the other is the other 2/3. I THOUGHT about further splitting the larger section again so it was equal thirds. In the end I think that is overkill. Obviously I am going to run some sort of schedule every 2 years (maybe less) that I empty one section and start that section over again. I am still going to run a DIY large Algae scrubber too and that will be over top of one of the sections. I grow grape calurpa like its a weed. That provides the shading over the DSB since a DSB does better with less light.

I just havent got to it yet. Although I am going to rinse the first two bags of Aragamax Sugar sand tonight for the front smaller section. I plan to get some sand from Paul at West Mariculture for the back section though. His sand he has is even a finer grade than the Aragamax stuff I have. Obviously an inch or so every few weeks until I get the 6 or possibly 7 inches I want.

One question though. The only place I see online that sells DSB critter packs is that Indo pacific farms place. Any others that you may have got them from and what specifc fauna did you put in. I know many of the critters are likely already in my tanks but I want to seed them properly to have a VERY healthy population. I will also feed them SMALL amounts of food directly to the top of the sand while the population gets going. Not much just enough to keep them multiplying until it is near the 6 or 7".

heres an OLD drawing I did when I planned out my refugium. The top part is the view from the front and the bottom one is from the top so you see its split into one 12"x44" section and one 6"x44" and about 14" deep. and then a pic of it from the side before I put water in it. That was back in April.

 

[Big E]

These DSB debates have been beat to death over the years. I'm not sure why the debate again arose in the Advanced Section, but I'd suggest going back to the archives and read some of those debates.

My only question is what are you expecting the DSB to do? You already have macro that will control nitrates............that's all a DSB does......they do nothing for phosphates except a large chance of raising them over time You'll have pods out of the wazoo without the substrate. Worms aren't going to do anything to make your system better.

A DSB isn't going to do what carbon or GFO do.

I really see no value in them in a sump..........at least in a display they are for looks and will support some fish that feed exclusively on worms, sleep burrow or live in sand.

 

[Jaculus]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2268433. Is this the main one you are talking about?

 

[brad]

I had 4 inches in my display tank for years, back when this was the thing to do. While I really would miss the extra 4 inches of display area (why I don't have one now), I otherwise thought this was a good thing. I believe it helped with calcium/alkalinity levels slightly, and greatly reduced phosphate and nitrate. I believe it also added a lot of food to the system.

I can't say I disagree with the those concerned that over the very long term the bed might become a nutrient sink, I've never been able to avoid doing a complete tear-down every 5 years or so, so I could replace the bed. Even easier if this is outside the display. I don't see the fear of a huge system crash that is all over the Internet as being a realistic fear.

 

[Jaculus]

Well for me the Remote Deep Sand Bed (RDSB) is the way to go for sure. I currently have a very shallow bed in the DT. I will likely clean that or siphon it on a fairly regular schedule even though it SHOULD be shallow enough that the CUC SHOULD be able to keep it FAIRLY clean. I still believe in cleaning any shallow bed though every couple months or so.

With running this in the remote sump/refugium I will have the advantage of splitting the sections so I can replace the media every year or two in each section (alternating). That will likely prevent the build up of phosphates and any other materials or metals that often cause crashes in DSB's. By alternating the refresh of the substrate in these I should be able to minimize the impact on the filtration during those times also.

Even though the RDSB is going to have a primary purpose of being the MAIN filtration I am obviously never going to stop my GFO, Carbon, Bio-pellets or growing algae (calurpa or algae scrubber). It's JUST MY OPINION but relying on JUST one type of filtration is not good. Also, a DSB of any sort STILL REQUIRES regular maintenance. Good husbandry and regular cleaning to include yearly or maybe bi-yearly refresh of the DSB substrate is NECESSARY.

To be honest we all usually set our tanks up expecting many many years out of them without tearing them down and starting over. The reality is though that most don't last over 10 years for varying reasons to include eventual crashes of filtration systems or just remodeling or moving. So while we start our tanks thinking of the 10+ years the likelyhood that most of these will be around in 10 years without some change or moving is unlikely in most cases.

 

[cash03ins]

+1 for Big E

 

[Jaculus]

Lots of discussions on the Advanced section on these DSB's. The consensus is though that if the choice is to run a DSB, it is better to run in a remote sump to make it easier to change the media yearly (or some regular interval) to remove the PO4 sink effect in the lower parts of the substrate. Using BETTER aragonite substrate also increases the longevity of this since the calcified substrate sand has very little ability to absorb this PO4 in this sink we call DSB.

Someone posted a link to a recent article on the Nitrogen cycle being more complex than we typically think of it and how sand beds have an affect on this along with Carbon in the process or at least not starving our systems of Carbon http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2014/5/chemistry