Deep Sand Bed

[BeefyG]

I bought some liverock from a guy last night and he gave me a 5 gallon bucket full of nice fine grain livesand. I already ordered some caribsea seafloor special from a LFS but it hasn't come in yet. I think if I used both I would have around a 6" sand bed. What do you guys think?

[myjohnson]

It's either go deep or go little.

There is a danger zone around 2-3" where all the sand does is trap stuff and become a nitrate factory.

I personal like the look of a light sand bed.

[RocketSurgeon]

I'm in the 2" -3" range. If I did it over, I would definitely go shallow. I would recommend a Remote Deep Sand Bed so that it can be taken off line if needed. Later, if you are having problems, you can easily remove the DSB to narrow down your search for the problem. If it is the DSB, you can easily correct the problem, unlike if it was in the Display Tank.

[soymilk]

What size tank? What size sand? The coarser the sand the deeper the sand bed will need to be.

Personally I would never do a dsb. Too much crud to worry about. Some people clean theirs, some people don't. The problem is the bacteria down there build up hydrogen sulfide. If released it could crash your tank, so some people don't bother touching it. Other people want to stir up a little bit at a time to have a controlled release of the gas. Then you gotta worry about phosphate binding to the sand so you have to change out sand every couple years.


To me, it's not worth it. But if that's something you wanna do. Go for it. I like bb and ssb.

[myjohnson]

I don't like the look of bb. It just don't look natural to me.

I always go around 1'' deep and just stir a little corner up each water change.

[BeefyG]

What size tank? What size sand? The coarser the sand the deeper the sand bed will need to be.

Its a 56g with a 30 x 18 footprint. The sand appears really fine but it was given to me in a bucket so I have no idea the actual grain size. If I use the sea floor special I have now and what Ive got on order I will have around a 2" sand bed. Could I do a DSB fuge with this fine sand in my sump? I don't have to use it but the more live material I can use the easier the transition is going to be when I move my nanoreef over

I don't like the BB look either Thai. I love watching my nassarius snails come charging out of the substrate when I feed my corals. I usually follow that with cursing and knocking them off the rocks with a stick before they steal the food. )