DSB Good or Bad?????

[casiano80]

Hey guy i got about a 4" inch DSB just want to know if its good for my tank or is that to much sand. check the pic and holla back...

[Tim Marvin]

Too deep, IMO. I run about 2.5-3 inch. I just don't like how they look when they get established. Kinda yucky against the glass.

[reefer74]

Read up on dsb's in the reefcentral forums...especially the guys who have had them for an extended period of time. If you plan on keeping your 20 gallon as a reef for a few years, then you may think about going to a shallow sandbed, and using other means of filtration...including heavy skimming, refugium, and mangroves.


Johnny G.

[oceancube]

LOL :o , caca what are you thinking, i told you not all of it goes in your tank, darn, looks like all sand tank, i would take out at least 2" , hope your clowns dont think of making a sand castle!!! your a crazy guy let me tell you!! DSB means 3-4 inches of sand, you might later on grow alot of dead spots in your tank with that deep sand, i would do what i told you and remove a little at least outta there!!! puro peinche sand y nada de pescow, ya quere murer el tank!dude i hope thats not the sand from corpus you got sunday, pls tell me no!!

[R.Allard]

Correct me if im wrong but it looks like you put new sand on top of an
already established sand bed.... if so your in for some die off especially
if you put sand from corpus in there.
Unless you go 60 or so miles out to sea your just putting contaminated
sand in your tank. Oil,refuse and other contaminents are pumped into the water along the coast so if you put that sand from corpus in your tank
you might want to siphon some out and do a 50% water change.
Check your levels, amonia,nitrite,etc

Robert

[TexasState]

According to Shimek, DSB will not be viable in such a small dimension of a tank.

[DeletedAccount]

But a pistol and goby pair sure would be happy!

[MikeP]

DSB in a nano may help marginally but I think you'd be better off with a shallower bed and just siphon all the crud out periodically. Nothing wrong with what you have but like Vinh said they don't do much with such a small area.

As for all the hype now about DSBs crashing systems - well people they are not a new idea they have been around forever but - very rarely do people actually set them up correctly and establish a healthy sandbed before adding other livestock. If you really want to do it right read the articles Dr. Shimek has online or get his little booklet 'Sand Bed Secrets' also I think it may have been Adey ? who originally made them popular in captive systems many years ago - you can look up his stuff as an aside.

[z28pwr]

That seems like more the 4" worth of sand but pics may be decieving.

I'm trying out going with a 3/4 - 1" worth of crushed coral instead.

[phage]

If you're going to go deep, then 4" is good. If you don't like it, then go with ~1". Anything between doesn't do all that a DSB does and traps a lot of crap IMO

I have a DSB and it is the best thing i've done. Tank is much more stable than past ones, and I dont mind the look of it at all.

[OrionN]

I got a DSB. I think it was the best thing I put into my tank. IMO, It was by far the thing that is most responsible to keep my tank looking good and get my coral to grow like gang buster.
Minh Nguyen

[Tim Marvin]

Minh, your tank was much large than a 20 gallon also. You had a much larger surface area.
How have you been? Are you going to set back up? The blue frag you gave me is bigger than a golf ball now. Remember it was only 1/4-1/2 inch.

[OrionN]

I just finish with the plumbing. I got some pumps on order. I will put the light together this weekend. I will go hunting for frags and fishes in a few weeks.
BTW, I will set up another DSB in my tank and refugium this time also. I trew away all my sand when the tank died (nothing to do with the sand bed) I got worms that were 3+ foot long in that tank. I tried to save them but could not.
Minh

[TexasState]

Minh,
If you're in the Austin area, Southdown might be on sale at AquaTek for $15 each.

[OrionN]

I need 2500+ pounds of sand. I am not going to spend 600+ dollars on sand. I will get sand from the beach here at Padre Island. I plan to get the sand off the sand dunes here in Corpus. From experience, I know that Siclica sand is OK for the tank.

[OrionN]

I plan to go to the sand dunes from Padre Island (my friend's house is on the beach) and get sand from there, and get sand from the back of my yard (I live on the bay). I don't think we need to clean the sand from the dunes. It is wind swep sand that is essentially free of organic material and is very fine and off white. I don't plan to add sand from the bay until mid Summer. I want to only add animals that do well with tropical type temperature. I may get some sand now from the bay, but optimally, I would wait until July or August.
If you want, you can just get blasting sand from Home Depo and it would work just as well. The grain of blasting sand is a little coarse than sand from the dunes but should cause no problem.
Minh

[Jenn]

Hey, I think you oughta get rid of the water and do an ant farm. Only kidding :P