Adding Sand

[reefnut]

Has anyone tried to add sand to an established reef tank? I was thinking of draining some water into a plastic tub to put the LR & coral in while adding the sand. My concern is the amount of time it would have to be in the tub. By the time the sand was added and the dust settled, that could take a several hours. Is there an easier way to do this?

 

[thomas712]

Ok you mean dry sand. Dry or live many people have added sand to their tanks. You just want to take it in stages. If you want to soak your sand overnight in some established tank water you can do that. If you want to add it dry you can do that also.
The trick is not to burry too much of your existing infauna under the sand. Add about a 1/2 inch at a time then give it a few days for the critters to inhabit the top layer. Proceed with the next layer until you have reached the desired depth.
Thomas

 

[reefnut]

Thanks Thomas, how would you get the new sand under the LR doing it this way? I plan to add DS & more LS.
Thanks,

 

[thomas712]

How much sand do you have in the tank now?
How long has the tank been set up?
Are the rocks on the bottom of the tank now and you don't want to burry them under 4-6 inches.
Describe your system, size, filtration.
How much sand do you want to add?
Pulling your rocks out of the sand might uncover some buildup that may pollute your tank some, anyones guess as to how bad. If you have good filtration and run some fresh carbon while your doing it and have a water change ready just in case you have a bad spike of ammonia.
you might want to get either some base rock or some more liverock and either leave your liverock alone and build your sandbed around it or place some baserock down under the liverock.
Most people will, when starting a reef tank put a 1/2 inch or an inch of sand down and place the rock on top of that then build the DSB. You will not want it on top of a DSB as any sand sifting, moving fish or the like could cause a reefalanche and that would not be a good thing.
I personally put a layer of eggcrate down, layered sand on top of that, placed my baserock on top of that then added the rest of my sand for about a 2" sand bed. I prefer shallow sand beds.
The choice will be yours here on either placing baserock under your liverock or using more liverock, or no more at all, but either way you will loose some liverock under all that sand. There are ways around it though. Some people have built pvc stands for the liverock. If you feel like doing that someone can give you directions, or even pvc feet siliconed to the liverock, either will raise the liverock and you will loose less that way.
Any container will be fine for your livestock and they can stay in there for a long time, as long as you maintain the water chemistry, temp, and all.
Let me know what your goal is as far as depth. I believe most reefers would agree that you should not place your rock on top of a DSB.
Thomas

 

[reefnut]

Thomas, that's a good point. I never thought about a reefalanche . I currently have about 1" to 1 1/2" of LS. I was thinking of doing a dsb... 4"-6". And yes, I was not wanting to cover the LR up but again I never thought about the stability. The tank has been setup for about 8-months. It is a 55g, just added a 10g refug a couple days ago. The only filter is a canister with foam filters. In light of the stability issue I will build the sand bed around the rock.
Is there any particular reason you prefer a shallow sand bed? The main reason I was going to add sand is the long term benefits of a dsb that I have been told about.
Thanks again for the info

 

[thomas712]

Originally posted by ReefNut
Is there any particular reason you prefer a shallow sand bed? The main reason I was going to add sand is the long term benefits of a dsb that I have been told about.

Hmmmm Can of worms should I open it? Naw..
I have been on some boards that have waged war over this very issue. The people on this board just are not like that for which I am very thankful.
Tell you what, when I first showed up on this board I did a little DSB bashing just to test the water here. No one, and I mean no one flamed me. They just let me have my opinon, ignored my post or just moved on. I do not really bash them anymore just to say that I do prefer SSB instead of a DSB. There is more information on them than I can give you in one post so I'm going to cop out on this one and just give you some links.
Did anyone tell you how long the benifits of a DSB are or what they are? Did they tell you that no one seems to have had one for more than 5 years without crashing? Im still waiting for someone to tell me about their 5 year + DSB. Dr. Ron Shimek tells me not to worry about hydrogen sulfide, I simply dissagree and do worry about it. His article though better than anything I could write still leaves a few cliff hangers that leave me wondering. Did anyone tell you how to maintain them?
Here are some articles, if you are going to have a DSB you should read them. I admit that Rons article (the first one) is very good and he is a Respected Sand Expert.
In short I think they are ugly, and I do think there is a risk or dark side to a DSB. I have read, reread and still re read articles about them. This is just my OPINION, There are so many people using them with SUCESS. They are good natural forms of filtration and denitrification, but its not going in my tank.
http://rshimek.com/reef/sediment.htm
http://www.simplifiedreefkeeping.com...bedadvice.html
http://www.lmas.org/nutrients.htm
http://www.thereefweb.com/biological_filtration.htm
HTH
Thomas
SammyStingray we need to talk

 

[waterwolf]

Do not add dry sand to an established system. I learned this the hard way.

 

[saltyshark]

If you don't mind adding the extra couple of inches around your LR use PVC to get the sand in. This is what I did when I added my LS. Just lower the PVC right above the area you want the sand on and pour down the tube using a funnel if needed. This way you wont get sand on your LR or corals. And if you are using LS there's almost no clouding. As Thomas said...add in small increments.
HTH
SaltyShark

 

[reefnut]

Thanks guys, I guess I have some research to do before proceeding. Thomas thanks for the articles .