I was reading last night regarding deep sand beds and they stated for a dsb to work properly it should be around 4 to 6 inches. Which I agreed with however, they said when using very fine sand ie. oolitic sand, such as in my case then you can get by with as little as 2 inches an under. Has anyone heard this or can give me a little insight?
Recent Reading Re DSB
- Thread starter wishmaster
- Start date
True in a way.
The finer the sand, the less you will need. I would still keep it at a minimum of 3" for very fine sand. This is what I use in my 10g nano which works quite well.
The finer the sand, the less you will need. I would still keep it at a minimum of 3" for very fine sand. This is what I use in my 10g nano which works quite well.
The finer the sand, the shallower of it you need, that's true, because oxygen is less likely to penetrate the thinner sand particles when pact together. But to be honest, 2 inches sounds a little too shallow 
A thinner layer of fine sand does indeed produce the oxygen-deficient zone needed for denitrification to occur, however, I do not feel it provides enough habitat for sand infauna to "do their thang" and KEEP the sandbed operating properly.
OK, how can I figure out if I do or don't have enought sand in my tank? I have a 75gal thats 48" long and I believe 18" wide. I have in there 170# of aragonite which is about 3". Is this enought for my FO tank with about 40+lbs of LR????? What if I add more rock do I need more sand? Does anything need to be done before I add more sand?
Just to give you a little bit of an update. I got my salt and skimmer on Monday, Set everything up and its going well. The base sand I bought was the oolitic aragamax. It is extremely fine sand. I put 3-30lb bags in my 55 gallon tank. I have almost 4 inches of base sand. I'll be mixing 40 lbs of LS on Thursday that should give me around 5 inches for a sand bed. Does this sound okay? By the way, my Marshall rock comes today is it okay to add the rock and then the LS?
