Advantages/disadvantages of sandbed

tankslave

tankslave

Member
I'm going from a 75gal to a 125. I don't use sand in my 75 just lots of live rock. I've read in this forum you should not disturb the sandbed I believe. Do you not vacuum it? I'm just totally lost and need advice. Planning on ordering some books today on reefs but I'd really appreciate any advice. Thanks in advance!
 
scotts

scotts

Active Member
The beneficial aspect of a sand bed is that it contains bacteria, bugs, crritters and worms that breaks down the waste in your tank that falls onto the sand bed. No you do not want to vacuum the sand bed because then you are sucking up some of the good bacteria, bugs, critters and worms. Sorry if there are typos, watching Emeril and typing at the same time.
HTH
Scott
 
laddy

laddy

Active Member
Ya, I agree, you do not want to disturb the sandbed. This is a place where good things happen believe it or not--breakdown of organics. If you have a lot of mechanical filtration you could always go bare bottom if you wanted.
 
mrdc

mrdc

Active Member
I love my ls over my cc. Two friends have switched after seeing mine and they love it. now they did it more for appearance over any advantages. Well the advantages have been stated. I think the only disadvantage IMO is it can get a dirty cover if you don't have some good tankmate cleaners.
 
mrdc

mrdc

Active Member
How much cc are we talking about covering and how much ls are talking about adding? I think the best way is to remove what cc you can and then add the ls. I did not remove all my cc before I added sand since I did not want to remove my rocks. However, I removed at least 95% of the cc and I added 80 lbs of sand over time. The few fragments of cc leftover are used by my pistol shrimps. I swear they must dig like crazy to find the remaining cc.
 
granny

granny

Member
Well, I have another comment somewhat different than the others. In a deep sand bed, your denitrification takes place primarily in the lower levels of the sand, not at the surface. Sand sifters, are in fact, beneficial to the tank, actually releasing some nitrogen bubbles from the converted gas to the surface of your tank.
Now, vacuuming, per se, sucks up sand as well and you lose some of it each time. I vacuum, then rinse my sand and put it back in the tank if I have taken too much out.
ONLY the surface is disturbed, not the deep bed itself.
 
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