Sorry about that. I miss-spoke when I said that sps tend to thrive in waters with 0 nitrAte. As I understood it, they do prefer lower levels of nitrate, under 5ppm... A DSB will help promote these lower nitrate levels...
deep sand bed have it or not?
- Thread starter buttered loins
- Start date
I also heard that you can mix the coarse sand with the fine sand and have no undergravel filters is this true. and is it better to have than the two sands seperated.
Not always true, many have used RUGF's and been quite successful in doing so. But that is not an option with sand as it would just fall into the UGF and clog it.
Could you also just have a small deep sand bed. Like have 5 inches of the mixed sand in a contained area in the back corner of your tank with no creatures living in it. or must it have creatures in it or you cant have the entire system all together?
If you can what size should the deep sand bed be to filter enough nitartes out of the water.
My tank disemsions are 1535mm in length 440 mm in depth and the height is 540mm
any help would be great
If you can what size should the deep sand bed be to filter enough nitartes out of the water.
My tank disemsions are 1535mm in length 440 mm in depth and the height is 540mm
any help would be great
The necessary acreage of the DSB would vary depending on the load you are wanting it to process. Going taller in a smaller area isn't necessarily going to give you a lot more biofiltration. You will have the anaerobic "layer" and a 3-4" bed is not going to suffer compared to going deeper (5-6" bed). At this point, the actual footprint is more important. And I doubt anyone will keep creatures from living in the sandbed if it's in the back corner. Fauna's going to get introduced, and if you have worms in your liverock - they'll find residency sifting through the sandbed as well. You can't "isolate" life in the marine system. Buttered loins, I'm not sure how you would keep that mixed sand contained. If you "mound" it in the corner, it's eventually going to "level out" and if you go much below 2" you reach that area of depth where achieving no oxygen is pretty unattainable. Really, the only way to contain a sandbed in a particular area is to actually have it either divided with a border on the bottom of the tank or to actually put it in a container which would sit in the corner. Keep this in mind - the sandbed is basically "sucking down" the crud to "process it." This is not going to be possible for the crud that "settles" on the bottom of the tank away from the sandbed. Are there workarounds? With just about everything! In this case, you'd want to make sure you don't let crap "build up" on the glass bottom which would mean vacuuming chores except where you have the sandbed. Having that sandbed eliminates the need for that, and you can get a really stable tank that looks good with that sandbed. IMO, a DSB just "looks the part" in a reef tank, even if it wasn't performing a duty. That's why crushed coral was used so many years back as the "staple" for the bottom. Now, with the benefits of the nitrate conversion available with the DSB, it is just a logical, win-win situation to use one. I hope not to sound too confusing, but yes - you CAN have a smaller "footprint" of a DSB, but would then need to do more maintenance which the DSB would otherwise do for you. And seeing as most people do tend to stock their tank to capacity a full DSB can be one of your "best friends" in that tank. Hey, I've been up all night yapping to an old friend, so I hope I'm not rambling away! lol. I don't think I ever went too far below 2.5" and definitely found no benefits with going more than 4". HTH!
Thanks alot for that great advice, so if do put a sand bed to cover my entire tank whats the lest amount i can put in and still have it to process the nitrates in my tank. could you have 2" or do you need more.
