DSBs Frustration

[Minh Nguyen]

yes Minh thier are certian worms that have the ability to basically hold thier breathe and dive down for bacterial food. These are the deeper tracks you see. They are very important in the migration of detritus down and nitrogen gas up.
Here is a thread on RZC where we are looking up a variety of studies/experiments and so oon done on sediment beds. t should make for a good read for DSB users.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=bf7406ebb0636b62c39b63c416e0ddae&threadid=263482&perpage=25&pagenumber=1


Mike

No,my worm is there all the time, not dive down then come up. I see them in their tunel. some of these worm (small about 3 inches long) have pumping muscle any I can see bolus of red liquid waves go from one end of the worm to the other end. other worms are larger wher I can see the bosy with wave motion. They just stay in their tunel. I guess that their tune is U shape and they are pumping water down one branch and up the other. These worms are deep, deep in the sand. They stay there. They don't dive down and then come up.
You can't believe that only the top inch of the mud sediment have anything other than bacterial in it. Do you Mike?
Minh

 

[Minh Nguyen]

Also, I don't have the time or the energy to chasing after AgeSalt, Bomber and SPC to argue with them. Just a few exchange with you here is enough to put a sweeze on my work.

 

[Scooterman]

All I want in my tank is what I put in it, nothing more, nothing less! Well ok, the poop can go lol

 

[Elmo18]

If you dont have anything alive past the first inch of your DSB, then your DSB will not function well.

Mine also has worms and worm trails all the way down through the 5 inch layer.

- Elmo

 

[Macbeth417]

I saw a very interesting lecture on UW TV the other day that included some information on microbial readings done on cross-sections of oceanic rock (this rock was forming near a volcanic flow in reasonably warm temperatures). This rock was packed full of large bacterial colonies deep into the body of the stone. I personally believe that you can house, as many people have suggested, plenty of anaerobic bacteria inside the live rock itself. I know that John Tullock, in his book Natural Reef Aquariums, suggests that a great deal of the nitrate reduction can take place deep in the LR itself and not only in these sand-beds that many people have been arguing over. From my freshwater background I would never use an exceedingly deep substrate (especially something with such small granules as the sand many persons use in their DSB) unless I was housing active burrowing or sifting creature that required that depth for a healthy habitat (maybe Tanganyikan shell dwellers ect.) With what I have read and experienced, I think a healthy supply of LR can be just as beneficial in nitrate (not just nitrite) reduction as the controversial DSB.

Just my two or three cents,

-ERIK

 

[mojoreef]

WOW Elmo what happened to you just happened to me twice now on my reply, what a drag.
LOL minh I hear ya I am tiring of it to. Nope I do not believe thier is any worm that can live in an anerobic zone (devoid of oxygen) if it occu[pies space down thier but draws it oxygen from the surface or areobic zone the it truely is surviving under areobic conditions. Actually I know thier is one but its rare. .
So tell me what critter that we have in our DSB's live in the anerobic zones. that way I can look them up and apologize for it

Mike

 

[Minh Nguyen]

My,
The syntax errors in post make your meaning not too clear. I am not a marine biologist so i have no idea what are the names of some of the worms in my tank. I do know that they reside deep in their tunels and these tunels are deep in the sand. Down to 10 inces which was the dept of my sand bed. These worm appears to move water from the the surface (of the sand) down to them by body movement. I would love to have somebody ID these worms but it woudl be dificult to get them out. There are many speices of these worms that I can see.

Righ now my tank is new yet (3 weeks) and I have not seeded it with adequate seedign stock so these track are few and far in between. My last tank, there were a great many of them. The assertion that there is nothing except bacterial below a few inches is absolutly false. If you are anywhere near some salt water body, you may want to get some deep sand and look at them under the microscope. What you see will absolutly suprise you. I am even willing to bet that even under the fresh water enviroment, there will be similar animals.

In order to have these deep living worms, one have to willing to seed the tank with these animal. I seeded my tank with deep sand. I tried as best as I can to get sand down to 18+ inches from the Corpus Christi bay, mid summer, to put into my tank. Maybe that is why I have many deep living worms. I wish you can see my sand bed last year or about 1 year from now.
Let me knwo whenever you are in south Texas, I am alway happy to show you.
Minh

 

[mojoreef]

Ok Mihn lets talk bugs. DSB's or sediment substriaghts are classified into several catagories. large motile animals such as vertebrates and invertebrates that lead double lives and are equally as capable of burrowing into the sediments as they are scrambling across the surface or swimming into the water column. This group includes primarily the decapod crustaceans (mostly crabs and shrimps), but also includes many echinoderms (such as brittle stars, sea urchins and sea stars) and gastropods. But most of these are not really wanted by DSB users as they tend to eat the smaller bugs.
Ok next down the food chain is meiofauna. these are bugs such as rotifers, gastrotrichs, kinorhynchs, nematodes, tradigrades, copepods, ostracods, many turbellarians and oligochaetes, some polychaetes, and a few specialized hydrozoans, nemerteans, bryozoans, gastropods, aplacophorans, holothurians and tunicates. I think this is the group that you are refering to. they live in the DSB in great numbers and are always in a state of constant flux. meiofauna are restricted to upper few centimeters which remain well oxygenated, although some can tolerate anoxic conditions for extended periods, which allows them to penetrate the reduced sediments. Often these forays into reduced sediments are foraging trips, and the meiofauna provide an important and major pathway for nutrients to re-enter the aerobic zone. This explains why people often observe animals or animal tracks/burrows in anoxic regions of their sandbeds. All these critters eat stuff like diatoms, flagellates, sulfur bacteria and "other" bacteria. makes up 90 % of thier diets. Not alot of detritus being consumed is thier?? Anyway these critters are abundant in about 2-3 cm of DSB's, from here thier population drops of dramatically until you reach about the 6 cm zone, in which they are totaly absent.
So again beyond the worms they may go on foraging trip the lower anareobic zone is the reduction and transfer zone and is the home to bacteria. This is not my rule buddy, these are the words of marine biologists both in the wild and in the aquarium world (Rob Toonan/Dr.Ron/Bob Goeman and Sam Gamble to name a few in the aquarium world).

Oh yea I believe the worm you are refering to is called a Arenicola.

take care

Mike

 

[Minh Nguyen]

Mike,
It is highly possible that these worms of mine don't read textbook. All I know is that they live down there. They not just moving down in there then go up because I see them down in there at the same place for extended period of time like days.
Kidding aside. It is possible that these animals have never being study.
Certainly there are lots of animals that are much more significant and have never get look at. All I can tell you is that these worms are not transient animals in the deep part of the sand bed. They live there. They have mechanism to bring O2 down in there. And I got lots of them. They are of a number of different species.
Minh

 

[mojoreef]

Ye Minh I agree with you, lol. they form chambers and suck in the oxygen laidened water from the areobic zone. and I BELIEVE you, What I was saying is that they are not capable of living (breathing/respiring) in an enviroment devoid of oxygen, they breathe/eat/poop in the areobic zone, they have just created a method in which to do it, while keeping thier body in the lower zone. Kinda a like the gou duck (sp?) you mentioned once before.
As per critter that live/breathe/respire/poop/eat in the anaerobic zone, that is limited to bacteria

MIke

 

[Minh Nguyen]

I think we agree that all animals need O2 to live with the possible exception of whatever worm you mention previously. All I can tell you is that my sand bed got worms living down deep, and that they got methos of transport O2 down to them. And that the deep space in my sand bed is fully populated with worms. It is not a void space except bacterial like many people think.
Now about the Vietmanese clams that you got. Any nice picture of them?
Minh

 

[mojoreef]

Damm Minh do you sleep, lol. check out the origina; post you made I replied thier.


Mike