DSB Question?

[zoafarm]

I'm considering adding a remote DSB to my system, and I'm tossing around an idea. I live along the gulf coast. So I'm wondering if I could just go to the beach and use that sand for my remote DSB? I'm assuming there must be risks associated with it (pollution being one), but if I could get some expert feedback on things I might not of thought of, it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for the help!

 

[SpartaReef]

Sounds good, just change it out once in awhile.... DSB works only short term... Its a time bomb really.

 

[zoafarm]

Can anyone tell me if this is safe or if there are any precautions I should take?

 

[downbeach]

Here's some reading:

http://www.ronshimek.com/deep_sand_beds.html
http://www.reef-eden.net/DSBs.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/deepsandbeds.htm
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-07/nftt/index.php
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-02/eb/index.php

 

[figuerres]

I'm considering adding a remote DSB to my system, and I'm tossing around an idea. I live along the gulf coast. So I'm wondering if I could just go to the beach and use that sand for my remote DSB? I'm assuming there must be risks associated with it (pollution being one), but if I could get some expert feedback on things I might not of thought of, it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for the help!

well first thing is that "beach Sand" along the gulf is partly made up from "beach nourishment" where they bring in sand and dump it and spread it out. so it's not really local sand (may or may not be)

also the good sand for a DSB will come from out in the gulf and have a lot more "life" in it, the tidal zone dries out and with all the folks walking on it and storms and so on will not have much sand bed fauna.

also you may have a park ranger, cop or someone who lives in the area giving you the evil eye and or a ticket for taking sand off a public beach as it costs a lot for the city / county to have all that sand put there to draw more folks to the beach.

I would say go look at Tampa bay saltwater's web site and have them get you some sand. they do a good job and have all the legal stuff taken care of.

I do not work for them, I have bought from them in the past.

 

[zoafarm]

downbeach - Great Information! I will take a look through it over the next couple days.

figuerres - Thank you for your feedback.

Looks like I have a lot of reading this weekend...Thank You Although I am interested in staying within the law and am not interested in taking dry sand from the beach, I do have access to sand from the gulf.

I'm really more interested in the problems it might cause to my tanks / livestock??? I'm will read the information provided and hopefully it will answer some of my question.

Thanks for the help.

 

[figuerres]

only other thing would be this:

90% of the time the sand is fine to use but some times a few isopods can be in it that feed on fish, run the sand in an empty tank for at least 60-90 days to be sure, if there are any of them they will starve over time.
in several years of using gulf rock and sand in only had one time where I got bad isopods in one batch of stuff.

 

[zoafarm]

Thanks. That's exactly what I was look for. And GREAT idea and I'll try that.

 

[figuerres]

also by the way the isopods are more night active, you can use a flashlight with a red filter to look at the tank at night.

there are good ones that will look the same as the bad ones so just seeing one does not mean it's bad, the easy way will be to try putting in a fish and see if they get attached, a low cost damsel or some thing like that can be the test fish.

do some Google searches on gulf isopods and there are pictures of them.
a few of them are really big evil looking bugs.
most are small and are just feeding on waste matter and are totally ok and good for a system.

here is a link to the wiki on the really freak giant ones for fun:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_isopod

 

[one clownfish]

I ran a DSB on my 220 for a while and all the talk of "it" crashing made me take it out. I took it off line all at once, that was a big huge mistake. I should've left it alone because my tank was never right again and I have taken it down. The DSB was 36"L x 18"W x 8.5"D with cheto on top and it worked great for a tank full of tangs. My tank was not .00001" as nice as this guys but he runs his the exact same way I did, sand bed with cheto on top. I dare someone to say its not working for him, lol.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2013/4/aquarium

 

[rlpardue]

If you read the Shimek article (the first link above) very closely you will find that his recommended sand grain size is super-uber-very-duber small. Like, smaller than that provided by any of the widely available commercial sands. I found some material that matched his requirements and am running a RDSB experiment with it. I'll post the results eventually

 

[figuerres]

I ran a DSB on my 220 for a while and all the talk of "it" crashing made me take it out. I took it off line all at once, that was a big huge mistake. I should've left it alone because my tank was never right again and I have taken it down. The DSB was 36"L x 18"W x 8.5"D with cheto on top and it worked great for a tank full of tangs. My tank was not .00001" as nice as this guys but he runs his the exact same way I did, sand bed with cheto on top. I dare someone to say its not working for him, lol.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2013/4/aquarium

I have always felt that a DSB crash story was a case of using the DSB as a scapegoat, imho almost any tank crash is the owners fault in some way.
bad maint. or lack of maint. or adding some thing that resulted in problems.
on a rare occasion something happened that could not be forseen but not a DSB just going "bad" that is just wrong.


but I will also say that IMHO a really good DSB should be *BIG* look at the amount of sand bed in the seas of the earth and compare that to the amount of coral reef....
we have much smaller systems and we tend to pack a tank full of coral and fish and then leave very little room for sand beds and areas for natural processes to clean the system. just keep that in mind when you design a system....

 

[power boat jim]

There is no way that a DSB wont cause a problem eventually unless it is maintained by turning it or vacuuming it out. It is not magic, it does not make detritus go away. It simply stores it there until the DSB becomes an anaerobic digester. At that point it will probably produce H2s . Any well maintained reef tank will function just fine with out a DSB. You can use one if you like but they are designed to fail at some point

Remember sand bottoms on reef are turned by 40ft seas on occasion and currents continually. No detritus ever builds up in them, so they dont really exist in nature the way we are designing them.

 

[ouyadi]

I think we can plant seagrass to solve this problem, the root system will take element from sandbed(which including h2s) for grow

There is no way that a DSB wont cause a problem eventually unless it is maintained by turning it or vacuuming it out. It is not magic, it does not make detritus go away. It simply stores it there until the DSB becomes an anaerobic digester. At that point it will probably produce H2s . Any well maintained reef tank will function just fine with out a DSB. You can use one if you like but they are designed to fail at some point

Remember sand bottoms on reef are turned by 40ft seas on occasion and currents continually. No detritus ever builds up in them, so they dont really exist in nature the way we are designing them.

 

[Fishypapa]

I dare someone to say its not working for him, lol.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2013/4/aquarium

It's not working for him.

OK, I have difficulties passing up dares.

 

[figuerres]

There is no way that a DSB wont cause a problem eventually unless it is maintained by turning it or vacuuming it out. It is not magic, it does not make detritus go away. It simply stores it there until the DSB becomes an anaerobic digester. At that point it will probably produce H2s . Any well maintained reef tank will function just fine with out a DSB. You can use one if you like but they are designed to fail at some point

Remember sand bottoms on reef are turned by 40ft seas on occasion and currents continually. No detritus ever builds up in them, so they dont really exist in nature the way we are designing them.

I will put it this way: you are 50% right.

without getting into an argument I hope I will say a few things:

1) yes big storms move a lot of sand and the waste does not stay near the reef.
2) Yes any system we create is very different from what happens in the real oceans and reefs of the world, that is true for any artificial man made habitat.

3) if you have any system DSB, bare tank or whatever if you let waste accumulate in some part that will create a problem later.

on each of them I think we all agree no mater what our view of the DSB is.

where I see a problem are with the following:
1) the idea that a dsb will act to hold waste and allow it to build up, if the right CUC and system maint and general care are used then waste should not be left over. if waste is building up then something is wrong with the care of the system or with the DSB setup or both.

2) turn over of the sand, while massive turn over is not part of the enclosed system some turn over of the sand should and will be on-going due to the actions of the CUC such as the worms, snails, cucumbers , conchs and other animals that live in and on the sand bed.

massive sand bed turn over is not viable in a display tank for many reasons, one could setup a large system with a remote DSB and do that but the cost of the system would be very high.

also when comparing a closed system to a real reef the ocean has a *LOT* more "DSB" volume than "reef" volume and a lot more "Open Water" volume than "reef" volume.

so any closed system we create is never really comparable to what happens in the sea.
to try and get close we might build something like this:
200 gallon display tank, with 20,000 gallons of water and a huge DSB that the 20,000 gallons passes over as it cycles. oh and very few fish in the whole system or make one tank with a small window for the display so that the reef fish can swim in all of the 20,000 gallons as they wish.

but most folks have to try and make do with the 200 gallon display and a 20-100 gallon sump/fuge system.

in any case we are for sure creating an artificial system.

 

[MLZ]

I've posted this elsewhere but anyways here it is; I personally am con-DSB for various reasons. First off, all DSB users are not supposed to disturb the sandbed; that works to a certain degree. But if that sandbed gets disturbed a li'll, you get all sort of crap in the water. Not just that but also you release lots of phosphates (causes algae). But contrary to popular belief, going with a shallow sandbed and cleaning it thoroughly is IMO the best option. I say that because of a few reasons. So the logistics behind it is; the different shades of sand in a sand bed are the various layers of bacterial activity. That bacteria is trying to process phosphates (which come from basically everything you put into the tank i.e. food). In a DSB, overtime, that bacteria tries to go upward in the sand because the DSB is getting filled with phosphates and detritus. That detritus is thus reallocating the bacteria into smaller and smaller spaces, making it less effective and unable to process the phosphates. But when you clean the sand bed, the bacteria is able to go back to its original state (with the assumption that you're running a filter/protein skimmer). And imo that is why I clean my sand regularly and keep a shallow sand bed.
So Zoafarm, I'd highly suggest something other than a DSB, because of the inherent long term benefits. Then again, DSB has worked for some who are persistent in not disturbing the sand. But I highly recommend that you consider another option.

 

[Timber77]

mlz why not disturb the dsb?, part of the fun is having things like gobies (im partial to engineer gobies because they get big enought to do such a great job of disturbing my dsb) coco worms, starfish, clams etc... a dsb can only become a a phosphate sink if you have a phosphate problem and that really has nothing to do with whatever bottom type you choose. If your tank is set up , that "crap" you refer to will end up in your skimmer cup, not in your dsb. The phosphates dont magically appear from bacteria in the sand they are due to poor husbandry.

 

[herring_fish]

I ran a remote DSB, with no critters, for 8 years with no problems. I also ran an in tank Jaubert (plenum bottom) sand bed for a different 8 years. It had lots of critters and it also had no problems.

So that is my vote on the mean subject but that is not why I am adding this post. I thought that I would add another anecdotal observation.

I brought live sand from the beach many years ago. What I didn't know was that, in many cases, beach sand is silicate based sand, not calcium carbonate. What happened to me was that I got a very bad outbreak of diatoms!
If you look around, you can find diatom filters for sale. You will also probably notice that their designs are very old. That is because that once people understood what kind of sand to use, this problem largely went away.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to tell the different so I just buy it from my local fish store and let the bacteria that comes in with my purchased corals populate the DSB. I don't go to Lowes to buy play sand. That is the wrong kind.

Perhaps, someone will have some more input on this part of the subject.

 

[Ron Reefman]

I have a 2' x 2' x 8" DSB in a 45g section of my sump/refugium in a 350g system. I control the flow over the sand bed and have a few clean up crew in there as well. One being a yellow sea cucumber from the Florida Keys who has been in there for over 3 years and only turns over the upper layer of sand very slowly. I've NEVER vacuumed or turned the sand over manually and my nitrate and phosphate numbers have been so low and so stable over 4 years that I only test for them if I suspect something is possibly getting out of line. In 4 years, it's never been an issue with the DSB. I have pulled some sand (just before I increased the depth from 6" to 8") and tested it. It did NOT release any measurable nitrate or phosphate!

And please read Ron Shimek's article:
Problems:
More imagined than real problems bedevil keepers of sand beds. The imagined problems are proposed by people who are ignorant of the sand bed dynamics. Among these imaginary problems are accumulations of hydrogen sulfide and detritus, and the need for sifting.