DSB in a small tank?

[yakiwb2]

I have a 58 gallon. It has been riddled with problems this past year. Crazy aptaisia, and brutal hair algae. I locked up my sand bed by overzealously dosing alk buffer to raise my ph, to help cure the algae. So I think I'll just start over. I don't have a very good skimmer...just a bakpak. I have a metal halide 175w and pc 196. I'm going to add about 30 more pounds of LR to make a total of 60.

My question is this. Should I go with a 1 inch sand bed, or deep...4 inches. I heard that if you don't have a very good skimmer you should consider only 1 inch sand bed.

I also heard that DSB are good for the first year or so but after that they are nitrate factories...unless of course you have a kick-butt skimmer and plenty of criters to move the sand around. Is this true? Don't want to have to start again in a year.

 

[hillbilly]

How long has this tank been setup? I think a good skimmer would help with the water quality-algae issues. You can use a dsb if you want, or not. Lots of tanks have them with good results, some have them and they crash. I have tanks with dsbs that do fine. However, the next tank I set up will only have a 1-2" sand bed. I'm tired of all that ugly, deep sand taking up tank space!

 

[K9coral]

I wouldnt go more than 2" deep. I think you will be fine.

 

[cdeakle]

I agree with dlart, I would recommen 1-2 inches...

 

[Unarce]

Here's my template (in case you haven't already read it):

If you were to set up a reef tank with high current, than there would be a lot of bare areas if you had a SB less than an inch high. 2-3 inches is the absolute best way to go. It would be incorrect to claim that a sand bed provides 'more capacity to nitrify and denitrify' simply because it's deeper.

"As much as 70 to 90 percent of the overall denitrification was located in the uppermost centimeter. The remainder was found at 1-3 cm depth"

-T.K. Anderson 1984 "Diurnal Variations of Nitrogen Cycling in Coastal, Marine Sediments."

"anaerobic habitat can be as small as 1mm, that aerobic and anaerobic bacteria essentially coexist, and that as little as 0.08mm distance is sufficient for nitrification and denitrification to take place simultaneously."

-Ecology and Evolution in Anoxic Worlds. Oxford University Press, Fenchel, T. and B.J. Finlay. 1995.

The misunderstanding is that areas with low levels of oxygen are a must for denitrification. Since we now know that aerobic and anaerobic bacteria exist together in the upper portion of the SB, than the heavy oxygen levels of our tanks would not be a factor. It's unlikely that denitrification will occur in the deep areas of a DSB, especially if nitrates never reach it in the first place.

I'd also like to point out that a deeper sand bed doesn't necesarily equate to more biodiversity of life. A shallow sand bed of numerous grain-size will create a number of different environments housing more life than a DSB.

You'll also appreciate the extra space a shallow sand bed will provide for the extra 30lbs of LR you're going to add.