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I vacuumed a four year old sand bed.......
- Thread starter EmilyB
- Start date
cwa, I suggest you read some recent threads regarding the buildup of detritus and the compacting of sandbeds.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthrea ... did=210605
http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/showt ... adid=16741
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthrea ... did=213665
The bottom line is, DSB macrofauna (microfauna would be animals only viewable by microscope) are not obligatory stirrers. As detritus builds up and the deeper areas become more difficult to move through, the animals will move to shallower areas of the sand bed.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthrea ... did=210605
http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/showt ... adid=16741
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthrea ... did=213665
The bottom line is, DSB macrofauna (microfauna would be animals only viewable by microscope) are not obligatory stirrers. As detritus builds up and the deeper areas become more difficult to move through, the animals will move to shallower areas of the sand bed.
galleon":2yko32ek said:The bottom line is, DSB macrofauna (microfauna would be animals only viewable by microscope) are not obligatory stirrers. As detritus builds up and the deeper areas become more difficult to move through, the animals will move to shallower areas of the sand bed.
Thanks Dr. Ron!
In fact the micro fauna, if present, will turn over the sand every few days.
By the way, none of the threads you posted had anything more than speculation about DSB's. Most don't even seed the DSB and wonder why they get hard. Many consider putting in a piece of live rock sufficient to seeed the DSB. So if you don't install and maintain them correctly, thay may fail.
I have had good luck with my most recent tank (75 gallon) which has a 4-5" DSB. I did seed it with sand from several other sources and placed as many criters in it as I could and let it sit with live rock and lighting for about month before i moved over the fish and corals from my 46 and 18 gallon. Keeping the microfauna in the sandbed is the trick - unfortunately for me my peppermints, hermits and a CBS did a number on the fauna (evidenced by lessening of activity at night over time and seeing the crustaceans stalking them) so I would say if you really want to do a DSB right leave the shrimp and crabs out. I still get denitrification but aside from the snails not as much critter aeration as I'd like.
As for stirring/vaccuming well I will stir one 4"x4" section once a month or so only the top 1" fairly gently with a wooden dowel to free up some detritus etc. I do this when I do regular cleaning of opowerheads etc and don't get down deep into the bed just enough to loosen up the crud near the top. Probably anecdotal but after these occasional stirrings many of my featherdusters, corals and other small critters open up and seem more active.
I would be curious as to how many people really set up a DSB 'correctly' and what methods they followed (seeding, time before intorducing fish/inverts, crabless etc).
As for stirring/vaccuming well I will stir one 4"x4" section once a month or so only the top 1" fairly gently with a wooden dowel to free up some detritus etc. I do this when I do regular cleaning of opowerheads etc and don't get down deep into the bed just enough to loosen up the crud near the top. Probably anecdotal but after these occasional stirrings many of my featherdusters, corals and other small critters open up and seem more active.
I would be curious as to how many people really set up a DSB 'correctly' and what methods they followed (seeding, time before intorducing fish/inverts, crabless etc).
Geese cwa :roll:
Actually, sea I did it a while ago. I just thought about posting it last night.
I didn't want to disturb much, just clean out some detritus and loosen up the sandbed.
In my case, I was at my wits end with a cyano battle on the sand - it is now almost gone and as I say the worms are visible again. I did it in sections, as well, yes, and very carefully. There is a ton of sand in behind and under the rock, couldn't clean that so we are only talking a partial anyway.
Actually, sea I did it a while ago. I just thought about posting it last night.
I didn't want to disturb much, just clean out some detritus and loosen up the sandbed.
In my case, I was at my wits end with a cyano battle on the sand - it is now almost gone and as I say the worms are visible again. I did it in sections, as well, yes, and very carefully. There is a ton of sand in behind and under the rock, couldn't clean that so we are only talking a partial anyway.
cwa46 and anyone else -
can you say how to install them correctly? This is what I am planning for my DSB:
I have 3 different types of aragonite. Two sizes of pebble, and then a bag of Fiji Pink. I had planned to sort of mottle the bed - here might be a mix of all 3, there might be a primarily one kind, some areas more fiji etc - give the critters places to go and options.
I was going to find some way to set up the live rock (i saw the thread about the drilled acrylic rods, i like that idea but i would use very short rods, just enough to keep the rock off the glass). Then i was going to put in the 3 types of aragonite, and finally toss on a bag of live sand, then the salty water when I fill the tank.
I was going to buy some pods and starts cultivating them before i get my cleanup crew.
Does this sound good, or should I change something? Help a newb out.
Thanks!
can you say how to install them correctly? This is what I am planning for my DSB:
I have 3 different types of aragonite. Two sizes of pebble, and then a bag of Fiji Pink. I had planned to sort of mottle the bed - here might be a mix of all 3, there might be a primarily one kind, some areas more fiji etc - give the critters places to go and options.
I was going to find some way to set up the live rock (i saw the thread about the drilled acrylic rods, i like that idea but i would use very short rods, just enough to keep the rock off the glass). Then i was going to put in the 3 types of aragonite, and finally toss on a bag of live sand, then the salty water when I fill the tank.
I was going to buy some pods and starts cultivating them before i get my cleanup crew.
Does this sound good, or should I change something? Help a newb out.
Thanks!
Hwarang.
IMO, if you want to do this right, you need to go very slow.
i would add some genuine live sand (not a fellow reefer's sand that is considered live because he has had it in a tank with LR). there are a few places online that sell the stuff.
i would add this with your dry sand that you have already purchased and let it cycle for months before adding livestock other than LR.
i realize this is painful to keep from stocking the tank but it will be worth it, IMO.
do not add hermits or sally light foot crabs. actually, i would steer away from all unnecessary crustaceans.
if after a month or so if you just have to add something i would just add a fish that was docile in nature and slowly work from there.
there are sand bed chores that most of us perform in one way or another to optimize it's usefulness. i learned from others that a good squirting of the rocks and bed with a turkey baster is a great idea. do this daily if you can.
also i tend to siphon off any problematic algae that sprouts from the bed. using an air line i slowly suck it off leaving the bed behind.
IMO, if you want to do this right, you need to go very slow.
i would add some genuine live sand (not a fellow reefer's sand that is considered live because he has had it in a tank with LR). there are a few places online that sell the stuff.
i would add this with your dry sand that you have already purchased and let it cycle for months before adding livestock other than LR.
i realize this is painful to keep from stocking the tank but it will be worth it, IMO.
do not add hermits or sally light foot crabs. actually, i would steer away from all unnecessary crustaceans.
if after a month or so if you just have to add something i would just add a fish that was docile in nature and slowly work from there.
there are sand bed chores that most of us perform in one way or another to optimize it's usefulness. i learned from others that a good squirting of the rocks and bed with a turkey baster is a great idea. do this daily if you can.
also i tend to siphon off any problematic algae that sprouts from the bed. using an air line i slowly suck it off leaving the bed behind.
Micro fauna=animals so small you can't see them with the naked eye.
How do you know you have them and how many should be in your sandbed?
"rshimekModeratorRegistered: Oct 1999Posts: 2482
Here is the procedure for examining a mature bed. If you just set yours up, this procedure won't work. It will take about 6 months before the worms are abundant enough. I would assume the bed is functioning in nitrogen reduction until something drastically wrong happens. This almost always works initially. It can fail in the long run, but the beds almost always start out well. Good luck. Live Sand Examination Materials: Small clear glass or plastic bowl or container. Transparent stand to support bowl. Intense light source; halogen bulb is best. Forceps or tweezers, fine-tipped are best. Hand lens (20x best) or stereo microscope. Turkey baster. Pipette (optional) Procedure: Use a narrow felt-tip marker to make a rectangular grid on the bottom of the bowl. The grid lines should be about 1 cm apart. Fill bowl with tank sea water and place it on support. Arrange light source to illuminate the bowl from underneath (use a mirror if necessary). Turn light off. Take about 1 cubic centimeter of substrate from a selected site in the aquarium. Don’t go overboard - less sand is preferable to more. Place substrate sample in the bowl and stir it to distribute the sand evenly. There should be a THIN layer of sand in the bowl. Too much sand will obscure organisms. Let the sample sit undisturbed for about five minutes. Turn on the light. Examine the bowl carefully using hand lens or microscope. Look for movement. Thrashing movement often is caused by nematodes. Slow coiling or slow movement is often caused by worms. Rapid jerky movement is often caused by crustaceans. Rapid gliding movement is often caused by flatworms or large ciliated protozoans. Count and tabulate organisms. Examine the dish contents closely by carefully clearing the sediment away from each grid square using the forceps. If you desire to examine any organisms more closely use a pipette to transfer them to a clean bowl with sea water in it. Count and tabulate organisms. Total the numbers of organisms found. Repeat several times, and find the average of all the values. Multiply by 10,000 to find numbers per square meter, the common benthic measure. Evaluation: If your number is between: Prognosis: 0-1,000 animals/m2. = Poor sand bed fauna, probable collapse of sediment filtration bed soon. Tear down system and rebuild sand bed. 1,000-5,000 animals/m2 = Mediocre sand bed fauna, rejuvenate with new live sand, faunal booster “kit.” feed system more heavily. Sample and evaluate system again in 3 months. 5,000-10,000 animals/m2 = Normal sand bed with low population numbers. Feed system more heavily. Sample and evaluate system again in 3 months. 10,000-100,000+ animals/m2 = Normal sand bed with natural range of numbers.
The value that you are multiplying has to be an average of several counts done from samples each with 1 sq. cm of surface area. If the average is 1/sq. cm., then that averages to 10,000 per square meter.
How do you know you have them and how many should be in your sandbed?
"rshimekModeratorRegistered: Oct 1999Posts: 2482
Here is the procedure for examining a mature bed. If you just set yours up, this procedure won't work. It will take about 6 months before the worms are abundant enough. I would assume the bed is functioning in nitrogen reduction until something drastically wrong happens. This almost always works initially. It can fail in the long run, but the beds almost always start out well. Good luck. Live Sand Examination Materials: Small clear glass or plastic bowl or container. Transparent stand to support bowl. Intense light source; halogen bulb is best. Forceps or tweezers, fine-tipped are best. Hand lens (20x best) or stereo microscope. Turkey baster. Pipette (optional) Procedure: Use a narrow felt-tip marker to make a rectangular grid on the bottom of the bowl. The grid lines should be about 1 cm apart. Fill bowl with tank sea water and place it on support. Arrange light source to illuminate the bowl from underneath (use a mirror if necessary). Turn light off. Take about 1 cubic centimeter of substrate from a selected site in the aquarium. Don’t go overboard - less sand is preferable to more. Place substrate sample in the bowl and stir it to distribute the sand evenly. There should be a THIN layer of sand in the bowl. Too much sand will obscure organisms. Let the sample sit undisturbed for about five minutes. Turn on the light. Examine the bowl carefully using hand lens or microscope. Look for movement. Thrashing movement often is caused by nematodes. Slow coiling or slow movement is often caused by worms. Rapid jerky movement is often caused by crustaceans. Rapid gliding movement is often caused by flatworms or large ciliated protozoans. Count and tabulate organisms. Examine the dish contents closely by carefully clearing the sediment away from each grid square using the forceps. If you desire to examine any organisms more closely use a pipette to transfer them to a clean bowl with sea water in it. Count and tabulate organisms. Total the numbers of organisms found. Repeat several times, and find the average of all the values. Multiply by 10,000 to find numbers per square meter, the common benthic measure. Evaluation: If your number is between: Prognosis: 0-1,000 animals/m2. = Poor sand bed fauna, probable collapse of sediment filtration bed soon. Tear down system and rebuild sand bed. 1,000-5,000 animals/m2 = Mediocre sand bed fauna, rejuvenate with new live sand, faunal booster “kit.” feed system more heavily. Sample and evaluate system again in 3 months. 5,000-10,000 animals/m2 = Normal sand bed with low population numbers. Feed system more heavily. Sample and evaluate system again in 3 months. 10,000-100,000+ animals/m2 = Normal sand bed with natural range of numbers.
The value that you are multiplying has to be an average of several counts done from samples each with 1 sq. cm of surface area. If the average is 1/sq. cm., then that averages to 10,000 per square meter.
So where did he get these numbers? Does he cite any references that show that this is the population density of infauna necessary to keep a sandbed from having detritus buildup or did he validate these numbers experimentally?
Considering his tanks crashed, I hope he wasn't relying on their sandbed fauna numbers. :lol:
The bottom line is, no matter how they stir it, they still allow (and even catalyze) detrital settling. Once detritus settles the infauna will move higher in the bed to make use of sediment that is less difficult to move through.
Considering his tanks crashed, I hope he wasn't relying on their sandbed fauna numbers. :lol:
The bottom line is, no matter how they stir it, they still allow (and even catalyze) detrital settling. Once detritus settles the infauna will move higher in the bed to make use of sediment that is less difficult to move through.
By the way, none of the threads you posted had anything more than speculation about DSB's.
Do you know any hard scientific data about DSB in aquariums? If you do, you would be the first one. They are all speculation based on natural habitats, which by the way, can't and will never be replicated in glass boxes sitting in living rooms. Even Shimek's writting on sand beds are nothing but speculation based on some data collected on natural habitats. He pressumes they apply to captive systems and have adapted it, at the best of his ability, to it. Captive systems are not naturals systems. Things do acumulate no matter how many pods and critters you have there.
Again, this is all my speculation and take it for what is worth. I do have a DSB now. It has been up for a little under one year. In a few months I will be moving and that sucker is coming out. When I re-set the system, I will put a DSB in the refugium only, where I can safely and easily vaccum it from time to time. If at all possible, I will actually set up another tub just for a DSB and some minor amount of rock. They do serve a purpose (nitrate reduction) and that I want to maximize. I will also set it up in a way that, like my refugium, can be isolated from the rest of the system without disturbing the rest of the system.
Alberto
galleon":mlo30210 said:So where did he get these numbers? Does he cite any references that show that this is the population density of infauna necessary to keep a sandbed from having detritus buildup or did he validate these numbers experimentally?
Considering his tanks crashed, I hope he wasn't relying on their sandbed fauna numbers. :lol:
The bottom line is, no matter how they stir it, they still allow (and even catalyze) detrital settling. Once detritus settles the infauna will move higher in the bed to make use of sediment that is less difficult to move through.
His tanks crashed? When was that? As for the data, why don't you ask the Dr. ?
But, if I installed a DSB and didn't take into account the kind and number of infauna necessary, then when it failed, would it be the technique or the aquarist? Another thing that Dr. Ron also suggested was a combination of a DSB and some export system like macro algae. How many DSB's out there are not exporting anything?
I think barebottom is fine. I just feel the thread places the fault of many failures on the DSB technique when many who install them, never even get the grain size right, let alone seed and re-seed the system.
You seem to be on some sort of crusade with this. There are many ways to skin a cat, and not all of them have to be your way.galleon":1hpigc05 said:cwa, I suggest you read some recent threads regarding the buildup of detritus and the compacting of sandbeds....
:roll:
I think so far everyone has been pretty civil. I am yet to see bickering on this one.
Sand beds are speculation, no matter how you cut it. How was the "right" grain size picked? Are there some studies using the different sizes and combinations possible to come to the conclusion a specific type and size is the best? Have they been replicated by others? Not really, just speculation and conclusion guided by some scientific knowledge and well intended common sense.
I am not bashing one side of the argument or another, but you have to be very clear as to the reasons you support one over the other. You also have to be clear that 99.99% of the "aquarium" scientific data is nothing but the result of the following 2 process:
-the answer to the question: if it works in nature like this (or at least we think it does), then x will work well in the aquarium as well.
-observation, which in itself, is a proven scientific method to some degree.
I don't think anyone in those threads stated that the DSB don't work. They simply bring to light that they are not what some people have sold them as: a sink hole that makes detritus and waste dissappear! They also emphasize that the maintenance required not only is incapable of mantaining those systems long term with a moderate to large bioload, but that is also counterproductive as well. They say it is too much work for what you gain!! I, as well as you, may not agree with what is too much work, but they do have a valid point.
I think the key in these discussion is not to get caught in personal attacks and be open enough to listen to someone's argument. Not just hearing them, but listening. You and I may not agree, but we are both coming out better informed as a result. :lol: :lol:
Sand beds are speculation, no matter how you cut it. How was the "right" grain size picked? Are there some studies using the different sizes and combinations possible to come to the conclusion a specific type and size is the best? Have they been replicated by others? Not really, just speculation and conclusion guided by some scientific knowledge and well intended common sense.
I am not bashing one side of the argument or another, but you have to be very clear as to the reasons you support one over the other. You also have to be clear that 99.99% of the "aquarium" scientific data is nothing but the result of the following 2 process:
-the answer to the question: if it works in nature like this (or at least we think it does), then x will work well in the aquarium as well.
-observation, which in itself, is a proven scientific method to some degree.
Define real scientist for me? A PhD? an MD? Someone that is informed and follows recognized scientific pathways in the search for an answer via an experiement?If Doc Ron has a thought about DSB's any different thoughts are automatically invalid because we are not real scientists.
I just feel the thread places the fault of many failures on the DSB technique when many who install them, never even get the grain size right, let alone seed and re-seed the system.
I don't think anyone in those threads stated that the DSB don't work. They simply bring to light that they are not what some people have sold them as: a sink hole that makes detritus and waste dissappear! They also emphasize that the maintenance required not only is incapable of mantaining those systems long term with a moderate to large bioload, but that is also counterproductive as well. They say it is too much work for what you gain!! I, as well as you, may not agree with what is too much work, but they do have a valid point.
I think the key in these discussion is not to get caught in personal attacks and be open enough to listen to someone's argument. Not just hearing them, but listening. You and I may not agree, but we are both coming out better informed as a result. :lol: :lol:
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