Increasing sand bed depth

[Shilpan]

Hey everyone!

My yellow headed sand sifting goby (who eats all prepared food now by the way), has really gone to town always sifting my sand and building tunnels.

Now I never siphon my sandbed bed anymore, as the goby regularly disturbs and releases detritus into the water coloumn. Do you guys think in this case a deep sand bed would be beneficial? Since I get maybe more dentrification, it shouldn't trap dirt since the goby turns sand, and it'll give the goby more room to build nice tunnels?

1) is this a good idea? Is anything wrong with my logic?

2) if it is a good idea, what's the best way to do it? (I'm going away for 6 weeks in 3 weeks time, so I'll probably do it when I get back unless it can be done now)

 

[florida joe]

Research deep sand beds, if you are going to add sand this is an old time trick, you will need a few

large soda bottles, funnel. Fill the bottles with dry sand using the funnel cap the bottles using gloved hands invert the bottles and hold them just over the top of the sand.

. Uncap and
the sand should start to flow out. If not give the bottle a little squeezes. At the top of the inverted bottle. Now you don’t have a sand storm in your tank

 

[jay0705]

How deep is your bed now?

 

[Shilpan]

Well the goby has created lots of variation

1 inches, bare in a few spots and 2-3 inches in other spots

 

[Shilpan]

Thanks Joe! Yeah I've had a bit of the look, the only downside is detritus trap but I have a goby stirring the top layer? Or is that not enough?

 

[lmforbis]

Research deep sand beds, if you are going to add sand this is an old time trick, you will need a few

large soda bottles, funnel. Fill the bottles with dry sand using the funnel cap the bottles using gloved hands invert the bottles and hold them just over the top of the sand.

. Uncap and
the sand should start to flow out. If not give the bottle a little squeezes. At the top of the inverted bottle. Now you don’t have a sand storm in your tank

I use a 4 inch PVC pipe to get the sand to the bottom and not everywhere else.

 

[2quills]

I added a little sand not long ago and did something similar. Cut a gallon jug in half, tapped a piece of 2" pvc to it and used it as a funnel. The bigger the mouth on the jug the better.

 

[jay0705]

This is intresting, ive never added sand once the tank is going w stock

 

[santamonica]

Sounds deep enough already. No need to chance it.

And if you have enough CUC, then no need to siphon either; the CUC and then the microbes and bacterial break down (re-mineralize) the particles as fast as you feed them in.