Sand Questions

binkyshin

New member
I'm new to the hobby and was wondering if anyone could offer some advice on sand.

A.)I'm planning on doing a deep sand bed. From what I've read, it should be comprised of finer grain sands like oolitic, and the tank should have really good flow in order to keep detritus from building up on the floor. This is a bit confusing b/c I got the impression from different articles/posts that oolitic tends to be blown around the tank b/c it's so fine. Then again I have also read that bacteria growth will eventually somehow help make the sand more "sticky" so that it won't get blown around as much. Is that sufficient? Should I go with a coarser sand? Or get weaker powerheads? If I need to dial down the powerheads, what should I target in terms of flow-rate? For context I'm planning on having a mixed 90g tank with a 29g sump/refugium.

B.) I was planning on getting mostly dry sand and maybe seeding with a cup of sand from a LFS. Is there a LFS that people recommend to get the live sand from? Also is that something they would give away/sell? Is there a particular brand of sand/grain that people recommend for the dry sand?
 
Hi Jim,

Sugar size sand is good to use for DSB I would look into the Tropic Eden Sugar size sand if you want to spend a little more or Petsmart carrry's a 30lb bag of sugar size sand for $19.99, if you want to seed your sandbed depending on how close you are to the city I can give you a cup or 2 to seed your dry sand at no charge
 
depending on what you want to keep, Reef Flakes is really good sand too. bit more on the expensive side though.
 
from what I have read and I have two dsb's you need sugar fine so that the creatures that stir it can do there job. the bigger the particle the heavier it is. the hardest part of it is to get the critters you need. you can try with good live rock but you have to worried about the bad hitch hikers. or you can order them online from indo pacific or garf.org I will tell you she has a lot going on at garf and my order did get messed up but to make up for it she sent me a bag of pod for free. if you decide to order the critters let me know maybe we can get together and order from indo pacific. shipping from HI is a bit much but we can get free shipping. I recommend watching newyorksteelo's videos on the deep sand bed to better explain the critters. there is a lot of people who are afraid of the dsb. o and the last thing I would suggest is using aragonite sand. it helps as a calcium buffer.
 
from what I have read and I have two dsb's you need sugar fine so that the creatures that stir it can do there job. the bigger the particle the heavier it is. the hardest part of it is to get the critters you need. you can try with good live rock but you have to worried about the bad hitch hikers. or you can order them online from indo pacific or garf.org I will tell you she has a lot going on at garf and my order did get messed up but to make up for it she sent me a bag of pod for free. if you decide to order the critters let me know maybe we can get together and order from indo pacific. shipping from HI is a bit much but we can get free shipping. I recommend watching newyorksteelo's videos on the deep sand bed to better explain the critters. there is a lot of people who are afraid of the dsb. o and the last thing I would suggest is using aragonite sand. it helps as a calcium buffer.


most of this is false, and gets repeated too often. read the link on TL sig about easy reefkeeping, sand stirring cirtters have little to do with a cryptozoic sand zone. Also sand does nothing to buffer, if your sand is buffering you have serious chemistry issues
 
it works for me and others so just read for you self regardless of what hatin says I didn't come up with what I said I didn't come up with it or pull it out of thin air. type in sand bed maintenance into you tube and see for you self and make you own opinion. that is my best advice. they were obviously gana hate no matter what.
 
i understand the droll by schmeik and co. that has been oft repeated, but its incorrect, pick up the books by steve tyree on cryptozoic tank systems which are a good meta of all papers published on the data. I'm saying this is bad information that often gets repeated by inexperienced reefers, just because its been repeated 100 times on the internet doesn't make it true. Crypto zone sandbeds have little to do with sand stirring, while detrivores are a very useful part of a clean up crew they have little to do with the waste processing capacity of a deep sand bed. I am not 'hating' I am attempting to correct bad information so that it does not continue to get passed around to make it repeated 101 times.
 
I think fwadiver is just giving his opinion and professional advice. He even states it has been "repeated too often" meaning it is said all over not just singling you out. He is just trying to help.

You can line up 10 different people and ask them how they reef and you will get 10 different variations. Maybe the same foundations or similar foundations but everyone's tanks are different. It is up to all of us to give our opinion and advice, if we can, and then the OP can determine which route to take or ask more questions.

The best thing about reefing is seeing how things evolve. Seeing how some drip acclimate for hours and have success while others don't. Seeing how others don't acclimate at all and have success while others don't. We all have different opinions but this hobby and these ecosystems keep evolving. Coral is a perfect example. Yuma and jawbreaker mushrooms and some of these zoas were nothing 15 or 20 years ago because the methods and systems have evolved. I love seeing how my things work or don't and the opposite is for other's and their tanks. It fascinates me.

Don't take it personally. Everyone is just trying to help others based on what they know. It is good to have so many variations of info in this hobby.
 
I will tell you from personal experience, having run a reef tank over 4 years with a 4.5 inch DSB, there is more work involved with maintaining it then most folks realize. I was an outspoken proponent for the DSB/"All-Natural" reef tank method. I won't try to steer you away from a DSB but here is one suggestion I would strongly recommend.

Avoid larger livestock that makes it's home in your DSB. This includes Pacific Jawfish, some Watchman Gobies with Pistol Shrimp, Mantis Shrimp, Engineer Gobies, etc. This sounds counter intuitive and I'm sure I'll get debate on it. However, there is a difference between a DSB employed for biological filtration and a DSB for display habitat. If your plan is to have a display habitat AND filtration DSB then you're building a potential time bomb. Let's say your DSB has had enough time to culture an anaerobic layer before livestock settlement. 6 months or so down the road you put a Jawfish or a Goby/Pistol Shrimp pair in your tank. After a couple months everything looks good. Nitrates are low, the exposed DSB shows evidence of active worm & pod population. One day you notice an unexpected algae bloom and your Nitrates are above 20. I would bet it would have something to do with that cute jawfish burrowing into the anaerobic zone of the DSB, thereby compromising the specialized bacteria in that zone. When that happens, you have to decide whether you want to remove the burrowing fish or shrimp to re-establish the anaerobic layer. If that's your choice then it could take one month in some tanks, or it could take six, if it's successful. My tank's anaerobic zone failed to re-establish. In the end my loss was all of my SPS corals, and almost all of my LPS with exception to my large pineapple favia colony. Over $1000 killed. All that because I thought I just had to have a jawfish since I had a display based DSB. If I were to do it again I would:

a. Move the filtration DSB to it's own sump
b. Use coarser grain sand (1.0-2.5 mm) for the display habitat DSB so there was little chance for an anaerobic zone to establish.

The important point is to understand why you're creating a DSB, and what you plan to do with it. A filtration DSB is like a septic tank. Don't dig it up. A habitat DSB is a high maintenance aspect of a reef tank. You'll need to vacuum it, keep it from going "wild" with the wrong kinds of infauna, and you have to make sure whatever sits on top of it is firmly anchored to the floor of the tank. I hope this helps you.
 
I will tell you from personal experience, having run a reef tank over 4 years with a 4.5 inch DSB, there is more work involved with maintaining it then most folks realize. I was an outspoken proponent for the DSB/"All-Natural" reef tank method. I won't try to steer you away from a DSB but here is one suggestion I would strongly recommend.

Avoid larger livestock that makes it's home in your DSB. This includes Pacific Jawfish, some Watchman Gobies with Pistol Shrimp, Mantis Shrimp, Engineer Gobies, etc. This sounds counter intuitive and I'm sure I'll get debate on it. However, there is a difference between a DSB employed for biological filtration and a DSB for display habitat. If your plan is to have a display habitat AND filtration DSB then you're building a potential time bomb. Let's say your DSB has had enough time to culture an anaerobic layer before livestock settlement. 6 months or so down the road you put a Jawfish or a Goby/Pistol Shrimp pair in your tank. After a couple months everything looks good. Nitrates are low, the exposed DSB shows evidence of active worm & pod population. One day you notice an unexpected algae bloom and your Nitrates are above 20. I would bet it would have something to do with that cute jawfish burrowing into the anaerobic zone of the DSB, thereby compromising the specialized bacteria in that zone. When that happens, you have to decide whether you want to remove the burrowing fish or shrimp to re-establish the anaerobic layer. If that's your choice then it could take one month in some tanks, or it could take six, if it's successful. My tank's anaerobic zone failed to re-establish. In the end my loss was all of my SPS corals, and almost all of my LPS with exception to my large pineapple favia colony. Over $1000 killed. All that because I thought I just had to have a jawfish since I had a display based DSB. If I were to do it again I would:

a. Move the filtration DSB to it's own sump
b. Use coarser grain sand (1.0-2.5 mm) for the display habitat DSB so there was little chance for an anaerobic zone to establish.

The important point is to understand why you're creating a DSB, and what you plan to do with it. A filtration DSB is like a septic tank. Don't dig it up. A habitat DSB is a high maintenance aspect of a reef tank. You'll need to vacuum it, keep it from going "wild" with the wrong kinds of infauna, and you have to make sure whatever sits on top of it is firmly anchored to the floor of the tank. I hope this helps you.

Having always had deep sand beds, i will agree with you. I tried having jawfish, pistol shrimp and gobies too. It just didn't work. I didn't have a crash, but i always had problems.

I now have a 4" DSB with fine grain sand, with only snails as sand bed dwellers, and my tank is the best it's ever been.

My future plan for my big tank will be a large tank with 2-6" of sand as habitat. I will have a basement sump and separate 90 fuge which will have my filter DSB. We shall see how it all works out!
 
I look forward to seeing that. I bet you could use mud with it and not even have a skimmer. and it would look awesome.
 
Snails, worms, some cucumbers and some starfish are okay in a DSB. These animals travel through the DSB in a way that does not create sudden breaches in depth, or create a passage that can cause oxygen to enter the anaerobic layer. Jawfish and large burrowing crustaceans mine through the DSB indiscriminately. They will also maintain the structure of the tunnel walls because the tunnel itself is the animal's shelter. If you have a tunnel that starts at the surface of the DSB and goes all the way down to where you can see it from the glass panels beneath, then you have little or no anaerobic zone in your DSB.
 
i use home depot sand , with a layer of crushed coral on the bottom, and also have big pieces of calcium reactor media on my sanbed. according to most replies on this topic my tank is a time bomb... been running over 20 years this way, maybe my tank just doesnt check out websites enough.. Husbandry is more important than bb or dsb.

i don't think hes hating on you ..... aragonite sand this myth is way too accepted as facr... it could be a buffer, but if your counting on that your tank is gonna have a heck of a ph issue which will kill everything way before the buffer kicks in. try putting a coral in your calcium reactor and see how it likes the low ph... Lots of flow, water changes, and properly sized skimmer all contribute to a healthy tank.
 
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