2 - 3 inch Sand Bed Questions ¿?

[Karlos Joya]

All right peeps! So I currently have a 2 - 3 / 3.5 inch sand bed in my 110 lps / soft dominated tank. The reason why I added this amount of sand to begin with was the looks but I have also read that a sand bed like this will eventually create aboxic areaa where denitrifying bacteria will grow and help with the nitrate levels... my questions are the following.. is this enough sand in order for that to happen? What are the pros and cons? Has anyone run something similar in terms of sand depth with good results long term? And if so, how long does it usually take for this type of bacteria to grow in those areas and start doing the job? This system was set up 6 months ago, all the live rock was passed on from an 8 year old reeftank that a friend took down.

hope someone can give me some advise and share experience here to guive me on the right direction and not mess everything up on the long run. Thanks in advise.

 

[BiggestE22]

You need to clean that sand. It’s looks like a toilet. The whole deep sand bed theory may or may not be true but it’s more than likely that if you continue to let that waste build up that your tank will suffer. Aldo if in theory you are following this methodology. You would likely need 4/6 inches based upon the original writers on this dated theory.

 

[Cali Reef Life]

only clean a small amount at a time. Like pick 10% to vacuum and wait till next water change use a gravel vacuum or python. Also you can get a 5 or 10 pack of Nassarius snails and they help move it. I also need to clean my sand been awhile and I just ordered 2 Nassarius snail with some frags, I QT my snails and frags so can only get a small amount at a time.

 

[brandon429]

nobody in reefing has control over denitrification in a sandbed in reefing. it's lucked into, not planned within a sandbed. they make reactors that can do it/designed that way with oxygen gradients and flow settings and correct media

but in the variation of a sandbed, that's been a 24 year lark nobody's caught.

plenums then deep sandbeds then shallow beds then no bed it's a never ending fad wheel we do in the hobby.

sometimes sandbeds create a net nitrate reducing effect

and 99.9999999999% they pump it out into the tank as the collected waste rots and causes all kinds of tank invasion issues.


the old articles made it sound like using a certain grain size or setup ratio or order of ops would reduce vs produce nitrate. that's not been attained yet in reefing. it's easy to make up stuff when it's only our reefs we're writing about, we get to carve all the extrapolations as we see fit.

if we take extrapolations from our home reef(s) and meld in some oceanography/undebatable stuff you wind up creating millions of readers who become assured about something none of their nitrate tests posted on this site agreed with. that's honestly how I view most prior sandbed in the reeftank material, a first person view cast out for all, and not ever customized per system with live time feedback on the line.


but when tasked with handling 200 other people's sandbeds, live time where mistakes can kill, I'd say whatever rule set that runs such threads would be a reliable starting point on sandbed biology. the real stuff, not the lark.

seek out giant threads that collective do work in actual reef tank sandbeds to discern what our beds are doing, those are rare to find because they're hard to run. everyone gets to make the rules right up until the live time game begins

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

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