remote sand bed, 20G brute container

[john68camaro]

Alright, I have been looking into a deep sand bed to help my water quality on a clownfish growout setup I have. I havea 20G brute container. It has about 8" of sand currently in it. I used cleaned live sand and am cycling the container stand alone before turning it back on to my system.

Is the 8" of sand enough in this container?

I would also like to use a PVC stand to put in about 40lbs of live rock rubble ontop of the sand. On top of the live rock I would like to add some cheato lit 24/7. In looking at most RDSB's it looks like most have them unlit for algae control. My hope is that the rock will keep the sand unlit to prrevent this on the sand and then the cheato will keep the live rock somewhat dark under it. I have the flow going to the container pretty filtered so with the cheato and the filter intake, I am hoping these will filter to make sure the sand is clean...

Any thoughts?

 

[CWP]

What you are planning isn't really a RDSB. Having live rock and chaeto pretty much defeats the purpose since what you want is a high flow rate across the sand bed. However, you can use deep sand beds in conjunction with a refugium, which sounds like what you are trying to do. Chaeto really needs 6 - 8 hours in the dark to do well from what I have been told. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can enlighten you about that. What I used for my RDSB is an old salt bucket nearly filled with sand that has approximately 400 GPH of flow hooked up on a predator tank, and it works well. Good luck.

 

[john68camaro]

I know the typical RDSB has the high flow and no light, but the high flow in that instance is to make sure detris does not settle on the sand and become a problem. In my instance I am hopeing the filtered water into the container adn the cheato act to keep the water clean enough. Does this make sense and will it work? Should I up the depth of the sand or will how I have it now surfice for denitrafication? I could add more sand to it and ditch the rubble and cheato. Not sure which would dbe better.... In order to get the 20G container to 3/4 full, I would need another 150 to 200 lbs of sand...

 

[jcmelski]

How big is your tank? I mean your DT?

 

[john68camaro]

This is for a clownfish growout system. I currently have about 700-800 fishies on it. Nitrates are a constant battle. I had cheato in this container with a 100W CFL on it. I have seen people say a 6" depth is minimal for a dsb to have an oxygen free zone and others say 3". What is an optimal depth? I know a person who breeds and uses an algae scrubber and it works, I just dont have the space right now to add one...


Total volume is close to 110- 120 gallons

 

[CWP]

The predator tank my RDSB is connected to is 90 gallons with 20 gallons in the sump, so it sounds like they are approximately the same size. My sand bed in my reef tank is 4", and seems to be holding up well. I imagine if you have a 6" sand bed, you should be in good shape. FWIW, when I first read about RDSB, the author stated that he had used 20 long tanks and (I think) a 55 gallon tank with good success. I'm not sure what affect adding live rock and chaeto would have on your system, but I don't see any reason not to try it. If it doesn't give you the results you are looking for, remove the live rock and chaeto. I'm a big fan of trying new techniques since it is the only way that the hobby can move forward. I say go for it, and let us know how it works.