DSB in a bucket for nitrate control

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After week one, I'm still holding my nitrates at around 80 ppm.

For the people that did see the dramatic drop using this DSB method. . . How many weeks did it take on average for the nitrates to at least begin to trend down?

In other words, when should I be concerned that my setup is either improper and or insufficient for my tank/bioload, thus requiring a somewhat larger DSB?

Thanks all.

--Bill
 
Do you think that this dsb in a bucket would be able to take care of the nitrate produced from a wet/dry? Thus being able to utilize its ability to nitrify ammonia?
 
I would assume that the DSB bucket would lower the nitrates produced by the wet/dry. I'm no professional, but nitrates are in the water column after the nitrogen cycle the wet/dry facilitates, and the DSB would be facilitating the NNR.
 
Jhaas said:
Do you think that this dsb in a bucket would be able to take care of the nitrate produced from a wet/dry? Thus being able to utilize its ability to nitrify ammonia?
Click to expand...

I think it would really depend on your wet/dry setup. I"m assuming you are using bioballs? I have used bioballs in a few systems different ways with varying amounts of success.

I used them on a 110g reef when I first started in the hobby along with a 6" DSB for about a year and never had a problem. I always wondering why people trashed them, my nitrates were always less than 5. I had a few layers of mechanical filtration above them a a decent amount of LR. I gradually removed them as I purchased more and more LR.

I later used them in a 72 predator tank with terrible resutls. I did not have enough LR and a poor skimmer. Nitrates were always 80+ I think too much detrius and uneaten food found it's way on the bioballs. I did constant water changes, vaccumed the tank, tried to introduce cleanup crews etc... no success. I eventually tore the tank down after loosing the fish gradually.

I also used some in a 44g reef tank 2-3" sandbed. I started with a ton of them and gradually removed some as I added LR. I still have about 1/3 the original amount. I have not checked nitrates lately but they are always less than 5.

I guess what I"m trying to say is that I don't think bioballs necessarily produce high nitrate levels if used aproporiately. I would use them again only if I did not have enough LR BUT had a good skimmer and a DSB somewhere in the system and a fuge if possible.

I have also tried tricks such as rinsiing roughly 1/4 the bioballs every month to clean some detrius off them. Do not rinse all at once or you may see a spike in amonia/nitrite.
 
Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m just curious on the actual amount of nitrate reduction the DSBB can cover, tacking in to consideration depth/diameter/water flow/types of sand used all that good stuff. And also, Will the DSBB work also for fresh water?
 
jhaas

He talks about a 55 gallon aquarium being filled with sand and being used like a dsbb lower the nitrates considerably on a 2000 gallon system

Dr. Ron suggests more than 5" of sand depth, oolitic aragonite being the best choice of sand
 
OK awesome idea!!! a question though, I am getting ready to combine two tanks into one.

Can I use sand from one of the established tanks?
 
I would think you would want to start out with new clean sand for this. The point behind the quick flow on top of the sand is to keep stuff from getting caught in it and becoming a nutrient sink. If your starting with dirty sand that kind of defeats the purpose...
I guess it would depend on how dirty your sand is?
 
You might be able to avoid that problem if you rinsed the sand really well. On the other hand, I am not sure that it really matters that much...
 
I have read about DSB crashing. I am lucky so far, I have not seen this. Because this is such an inexpensive way to go, it made me think that it might be a good idea to hook 4 of these together (maybe even smaller buckets) in a many that one could be replaced every 6 month with a new bucket. This would give a full rotation every 2 years, at any given time 75% fully active DBS system and the ability to prevent the bed from overloading and crashing.

Anthony
 
Sounds like a very good idea. I can't think of any drawbacks, but I'm not sure if it's totally necessary. The remote DSB's don't seem to suffer from the "crashes" that are described for tank DSBs probably because of the way they are designed : mechanicial prefiltration and or fast flow to prevent detritis from settling down onto the bed.
 
Is this only true that remote mega deep DSB like the ones in buckets will not crash or true for the ones in refugiums or with only 5-6 inches of sand also?

What is the longest anyone has been running a DSB bucket?

Anthony
 
I can't speak as someone having a long term DSB Bucket, however I believe that DSBs in refugiums and those with lesser depths would be less likely to "crash" if they are designed with the considerations others in this post have described.

Many people believe that a properly maintained DSB is not prone to "crashing" ever. There is much debate over the whole crash issue as I'm sure you are well aware, but when something does go wrong, there is usually a good explaination for it -- it is very rarely a mystery. Good explainations being: huge bioloads, poor circulation, large amounts of detritis packing the DSB, infrequent water changes, the list goes on and on.
 
I think you should consider the DSB Bucket, not a sandbed at all, but a denitrater. You are providing anarobic area and not really setting up a sand bed and fauna. We should call this the Calfo Bucket Denitrator so we won't be making comparisons to Deep Sand Beds and the different requirements of each.
 
Not to detract from the wonder of Calfo (jk, Anthony...), but I would recommend the name "Remote Deep Sand Bed" - RDSB. I suspect from what we see of Anthony here, he doesn't feel the need to have things named after him. ;)
 
good heaven's, yes... thank you :p

I spent a good year in lectures/hobby clubs trying to break folks from calling the CLM (closed loop manifold) the "Calfo manifold" :D

Since DSBs in displays most only are any good at denitrifying (such poor biodiversity otherwise) and the bucket is a means of removing the bed to a remote location to spare need for diatom/algae controlling creatures when the sand is illuminated, etc... the moniker "RDSB" seems as good as any name. It is deep sand... it is remote... and it will do about as much or as little as the same bed in a display that is fairly called a "DSB"
 
Now that everybody has decided on an appropriate name, Anthony needs to put a link to this thread on the RC homepage.

This absolutely needs to be part of the required info for beginners. (maybe a sublink under the "So you want to start a marine tank. . . ")
 
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