removing sand from display tank

[jakleen]

i just read in the fish magazine( i do not rememberwhich one was it ) ,i read all. i read that we should remove sand from display tank,because off all the stuff that can accumulate in it. according to usuall trend ,i have about 4-6 inches of sand in my display tank. my engineer goby(convict goby) , stirs the sand on one side of my tank, my niger and humahuma triggers ( i know i should not have triggers in reef tank, but i love them ) move lots of the top sands around. 1 or 2 of my nasarius snails have escaped my triggers.,so they move some sand around too. should i worry about this and start taking most of my sand out(slowley). i will not touch my ref . sand ,and will even add some:confused of the display sand to ref. is this a good idea,or should i just not worry about it much. thanks. jakleen

 

[DonW]

You dont need to rush out and remove your sand. A sand bed will fail eventually without proper care but with the proper care it will last many many years.

Don

 

[Herefishyfishy]

What don't you like about DSBs?

 

[Krish]

I agree with Don...Once the proper care is taken with whichever substrate setup you decide to go with, you'll be fine. I wouldn't rush anything just yet especially if everything is going fine. It's when you start to see changes that you need to look into these things IMO

 

[Juanfer]

I agree with Don...Once the proper care is taken with whichever substrate setup you decide to go with, you'll be fine.

what you have to do????

 

[coil1002]

Anthony Calfo has deep sand beds that are over 10 years old I have been around long enough to remember the Berlin method craze then we went to dsb's now it looks like every one wants to go Berlin again or bare bottom as it’s called now. I think I read the article you are talking about there have been several articles as of late. There are advantages and dis advantages to both. I found with proper care i.e vacuuming the bed sections at a time good sand stirrers and proper flow I never had much problems with my sand bed I kept a 3 inch in my 55g for five years. The only problems I ever had was with me slacking off the bed was always fine.

May not be that scientific and I am sure there are those here who can get way more in depth but for me I love my sand bed I enjoy watching the life in there almost as much as I do in the tank.

My 2 cents

 

[jakleen]

thanks for the response. i do not vacume the deep sand bed for obviouse reasons,or should i??? thanks jakleen

 

[Krish]

what you have to do????

Which sand bed are you talking about? How to care for a deep sand bed or shallow sand bed? If a deep sand bed, I am no expert there...Never really got into too much detail there where deep sand beds are concerned although I have a general idea on how they function as they are the only type of sand bed that can successfully denitrify do to it having anaerobic regions for the necessary bacteria to grow, but as for care, could say for sure. I know you shouldn't stir the lower regions, but could say for the rest. A shallow sand bed, on the other hand, is a bit different and you'd want to keep it as clean as possible so it doesn't work against you by trapping waste and detritus and degrading water quality as a ssb cannot denitrify. Either you'll have to have critters to help you with a lot of the clean up or do it yourself which is always a good idea to do anyways IMO as critters produce waste themselves. I guess the others will chime in

 

[class clown]

on the sand whole husbandry thing.. should you periodically lift up the rocks and vacuum under those too? I imagine it is probably best do do so, but boy, what a pain that would be. especially if you ahve a bunch of corals balancing on top.

Think you'd be ok by just vacuuming and stirring the sand that is not under the rocks or would you eventually get a crash too?

maybe i've just been lucky, but I've had a sand bed (not deep), just a couple inches for ~ 5 yrs now and haven't had any problems with it that I know of besides deitris collection when I overfeed.

 

[Juanfer]

Which sand bed are you talking about? How to care for a deep sand bed or shallow sand bed? If a deep sand bed, I am no expert there...Never really got into too much detail there where deep sand beds are concerned although I have a general idea on how they function as they are the only type of sand bed that can successfully denitrify do to it having anaerobic regions for the necessary bacteria to grow, but as for care, could say for sure. I know you shouldn't stir the lower regions, but could say for the rest. A shallow sand bed, on the other hand, is a bit different and you'd want to keep it as clean as possible so it doesn't work against you by trapping waste and detritus and degrading water quality as a ssb cannot denitrify. Either you'll have to have critters to help you with a lot of the clean up or do it yourself which is always a good idea to do anyways IMO as critters produce waste themselves. I guess the others will chime in

I have a deep sand bed

 

[thekingfish]

Not debating the merits of DSBs but its pretty amazing how much detritus comes out of it when you remove the sand.
I helped a friend take down his 55g and the buckets of sand from the tank looked like mud water. His acros though were super colored with great growth so it must have been ok for some reason.

 

[Krish]

Deep sand beds are way out of my league(lol). I know there were numerous threads and debates on them so maybe you can browse through the advanced topics section and see what's there or do a search on it. Or...Possibly start a thread dedicated to dsb on how to properly care for them and see what feedback you get. I'm sure it will be useful to many as you always hear about how great a dsb works for denitrification, but not very many people know how to care for them properly so they end up with nothing, but problems

 

[jakleen]

yes i do have deep sand bed. most critters do not last ,because of my nutso triggers. thans. jakleen

 

[balogh03]

Not trying to hijack or anything (or am I?), but i have about a 2-3" sb and was wondering if i should ever vacumn it? I have two sleeper goby's that are ALWAYS stirring it up. thanks

-augustus

 

[Krish]

Not trying to hijack or anything (or am I?), but i have about a 2-3" sb and was wondering if i should ever vacumn it? I have two sleeper goby's that are ALWAYS stirring it up. thanks

-augustus

Unless they eat poop, I'd vaccum it. Alot of waste settles in sand beds that should be removed because they can degrade water quality if left to rott. However, the fact that your goby's stirr up the sandbed, depending on how well they do it, alot of the detritus may get lifted into the water column which is good for one, as some corals will feed on it and two, your skimmer gets a shot at removing it as well. I wouldn't rely on them totally because a lot could get missed, so and would still give the sand bed a vaccum just incase. Just my 2 cents

 

[coil1002]

I vacuum the top layer of mine but only in small sections per water change. I feel there is a lot of life in the sand bed I don’t wish to disturb it all at once. As for under the rock I never deal with it when I do A water change once a week I use a power head and blast off the rock work I do not use a filter sock in my fuge. I let my detrivores do there job and I grow massive amounts of cheatomorphia. In the sump per liveforphysics instructions and use very coarse substrate there and I never seem to have a prob.

How ever I will say all this applies to my old 55g sand bed that lasted many years until my stupid mistake crashed the tank. I do all this on my new tank as well but it is only about 6 months old and doing fine.

I would love to have more people chime in on dsb's and the maintenance.