keeping deep sand bed clean

[StephNewman]

what should be done to maintain a deep sand bed, should sand bed be turned over deep or should the nlower level be left alone? Any suggestions. I have about three to four inches in the front and then declines as it goes to the back of the tank. I did this for serval reasons
1) allowed to place rocks close to glass so that thngs don''t dig under them causing the rocks to move
2) harder to clean sand when they are under the rockwork

 

[capncapo]

There are a few schools of thought about what is or is not a DSB but I think the general consensus is that a DSB requires a minimum of 4 inches of sand to work. From what I've read, anything less is not a DSB and will not function as a DSB.

The critters that you purchase or get from someone keep the sand clean. Disturbing the sand in not necessary or desired.

 

[DrBDC]

Once the sand it in there, don't touch it. Let the nassarus(sp?), ceriths(sp?) and other critters do the work. Even a shallow sand bed will function with some denitrification although not like a DSB (4-6"). If you stir up your sand you'll release a lot of nasties and possibly even kill some corals. About all you should ever do to the sand is suction off cyano if it occurs but at the same time trying not to pick up any sand with cyano.

 

[hagfish]

If it's not OK for me to manually blow or move sand around, what happends when my pistol shrimp starts digging his way to China? Should this be equally as bad? Same question applies to an engineer goby, which I have in another tank. It seems like I always read that it's OK if one of these animals digs around, but I don't see how that could be. That shrimp can dig to the bottom of 4 inches of sand in about 30 seconds in one spot.

 

[sirreal63]

My first tank crash came from an engineer goby. 4" sand bed and he was happy to excavate about 1 sq. foot of the tank....then one night he decided to excavate the rest of the tank releasing all those noxious compounds into the water column. I lost all of my sps and a few softies. That stuff had been undisturbed for about 6 months until the goby stirred it up. A word of warning with sand diggers...it is of if they dig all of the tank but dangerous if they don't and suddenly decide to.

 

[frenchie]

some like diamond gobie like to make big mounds of sand, been there done that, tried few other gobies that went carpet surfing, the only ones that have done and awsome job for me that i have one in each tank is a dragon gobie also called banded gobie, sleeper banded gobie.

 

[frenchie]

here is a link for ya