Dsb's work, what makes them work best?
- Thread starter barryhc
- Start date
I would like to know the definition of a deep sand bed. How many inches are we talking here? I currently have a 55 gal. reef that has an average of 4 inches of sand. I am in the middle of building a 500 gal total water system. The display is 360 and I know I am going to have sand, but I do not know how much. From fear of "crashes" whatever the definition of those are, I have been leaning towards just having about 2 inches of sand in the new tank.
boxfishpooalot
Active member
I think if you use a gravel vacume on one side of the dsb, then do the other side 2 months later you could extend the life of a dsb.
Nature uses this meathod too, it called a hurricane.
Nature uses this meathod too, it called a hurricane.
boxfishpooalot
Active member
I noticed this also. My macro is not growing anymore. At least its very slow anyway under the 400watt halide.
npaden
New member
One thing that has always confused me over DSB "failures" is that many of the tanks are relatively young. If the DSB is actually a phosphate sink then for the first couple years there shouldn't be any algae problems, but many people have issues within 1 year or even less.
Joe, beautiful tank. My tank went through some similar issues around the 2 year mark and like yours mine turned the corner and the algae went away and coral growth took off. The difference was that I didn't remove any sand.
I have a hard time figuring out why one tank works and another doesn't. One thing I noticed in the pics is that you went from a bunch of maxijets to tunze streams. Probably triple the water flow. Not sure if that has anything to do with it or not.
When my tank cleared up I added a tunze stream and switched from iwasaki bulbs to xm 10k bulbs. No idea if that had anything to do with anything or not.
Just some more food for thought.
Joe, beautiful tank. My tank went through some similar issues around the 2 year mark and like yours mine turned the corner and the algae went away and coral growth took off. The difference was that I didn't remove any sand.
I have a hard time figuring out why one tank works and another doesn't. One thing I noticed in the pics is that you went from a bunch of maxijets to tunze streams. Probably triple the water flow. Not sure if that has anything to do with it or not.
When my tank cleared up I added a tunze stream and switched from iwasaki bulbs to xm 10k bulbs. No idea if that had anything to do with anything or not.
Just some more food for thought.
romanr
New member
One thing about keeping a specific depth is that your tank inhabitants might make this impossible. My sand bed is about 5 in deep in 50% of the tank, 3 in deep in 25% of the tank and 2 in deep in the other 25%.
I think the key to a successful DSB is your infauna population and diversity as well as your clean-up crew for the top 1/2 inch layer of your sand bed.
In my tank I have various worms (spaghetti, bristle, several other yet unidentified species), amphipods, copepods, micro-stars. The population of these change with one blooming to high numbers, only to decline and being superceded by another.
My clean-up crew is composed of 6 or so sea cucumbers of two varieties.
No, my DSB is not without problems. I need to recruit some other creature to my clean-up crew to take care of some diatoms and algae found on some spots in the sand bed. I need to make it a point to replenish my infauna with more critters on a yearly basis to keep the needed diversity in my tank. But overall I am please with the results and made my decision to go with a DSB for the following 2 reasons.
1) I'm lazy and don't want to be cleaning detritus all the time. The sand bed does turn into a magical sink where all the bad stuff goes in and disappears. Yes I'm not stupid and know that it doesn't really disappear but it does get consumed/broken down to acceptable levels and makes maintenance a breeze. If in a few years my DSB goes to hell then I will slowly replace it and get a few more years out of it.
2) The look of a sandy substrate is not something I am willing to do without. It is simply aesthetically more pleasing in my opinion.
I think the key to a successful DSB is your infauna population and diversity as well as your clean-up crew for the top 1/2 inch layer of your sand bed.
In my tank I have various worms (spaghetti, bristle, several other yet unidentified species), amphipods, copepods, micro-stars. The population of these change with one blooming to high numbers, only to decline and being superceded by another.
My clean-up crew is composed of 6 or so sea cucumbers of two varieties.
No, my DSB is not without problems. I need to recruit some other creature to my clean-up crew to take care of some diatoms and algae found on some spots in the sand bed. I need to make it a point to replenish my infauna with more critters on a yearly basis to keep the needed diversity in my tank. But overall I am please with the results and made my decision to go with a DSB for the following 2 reasons.
1) I'm lazy and don't want to be cleaning detritus all the time. The sand bed does turn into a magical sink where all the bad stuff goes in and disappears. Yes I'm not stupid and know that it doesn't really disappear but it does get consumed/broken down to acceptable levels and makes maintenance a breeze. If in a few years my DSB goes to hell then I will slowly replace it and get a few more years out of it.
2) The look of a sandy substrate is not something I am willing to do without. It is simply aesthetically more pleasing in my opinion.
kbmdale
In Memoriam
There is a part of this discussion being overlooked that Romanr just touched on..To have a successful DSB you will have to have an areobic area and an anarobic area within the sandbed.
I get what your saying Romanr, and maybe thats why the tank on the first page has worked so well... He has 8" deep zones at the end and 2" in the middle, maybe you need more areobic than anareobic. Of course I have no proof of this...
but I have a hunch that this could ne the case, I have seen other successful DSB tanks and they all seem to have varieing depths of sand throughout the tank.
I get what your saying Romanr, and maybe thats why the tank on the first page has worked so well... He has 8" deep zones at the end and 2" in the middle, maybe you need more areobic than anareobic. Of course I have no proof of this...
but I have a hunch that this could ne the case, I have seen other successful DSB tanks and they all seem to have varieing depths of sand throughout the tank.
npaden
New member
I did not have a refugium when I was having algae problems. I got everything ready for my new refugium and was about to get it setup and the nusiance algae disappeared almost overnight.
I went ahead and setup the refugium anyway and now am growing a lot of cheato in there. It is in a greenhouse in full sun. I also setup a larger skimmer.
One other thing that happened to my tank that I attribute some of the problems with was a big drop in salinity while I was on vacation to Fiji one summer. My big Fiji yellow leather died (like 18") and that caused a lot of the problems I think.
That's the issue with a reef tank, there are so many variables it is hard to tie it down to one thing.
FWIW, Nathan
I went ahead and setup the refugium anyway and now am growing a lot of cheato in there. It is in a greenhouse in full sun. I also setup a larger skimmer.
One other thing that happened to my tank that I attribute some of the problems with was a big drop in salinity while I was on vacation to Fiji one summer. My big Fiji yellow leather died (like 18") and that caused a lot of the problems I think.
That's the issue with a reef tank, there are so many variables it is hard to tie it down to one thing.
FWIW, Nathan
romanr
New member
My various depths were not by design but the creation of a clown that loves to stir things up. I was at first concerned that I wasn't realizing the ideal, even sand bed but after unsuccessful attempts at undoing my clown's design and further education on the various substrate theories I decided that it wasn't an all together bad thing to have a DSB with varying depths.
J_Geisinger000
New member
Im thinking of going bb for my new 90 gallon sps tank
so that I can get the amount of flow that I want with out having to worry about blowing sand everywhere
so that I can get the amount of flow that I want with out having to worry about blowing sand everywhere
