No sand or loads of sand?

[traxryu]

Ive heard many of rules(Books and Face to Face) on this whole sand debate but not one has convinced me on what I should do! Alot of people tell me that:
its a great bio source but others tell me that detritis buildup can hurt your tank.
It looks "Pretty" but its a bit** to clean and not worth it
"ITS TOTALLY IMPORTANT THAT YOU HAVE SAND IN YOUR TANK!"
The rock will do all the work you need.
And so on and so forth...
Has anyone the correct answer out there? Or does it really matter. Should I go with nothing on the bottom or do the whole sand calc stuff? This would be of great help to me. Thanks!
P.S. Ive always had sand but now Im not sure what I should do?

 

[nm reef]

Personally speaking....I prefer a diverse mature DSB of 5"-6" with approximately 1-1.5 lbs of quality LR per gal of the display. Combined the LR & the DSB make an excellant foundation for developing a reef. It can be the foundation of practically any filtration system. Myself I'd stick with LR/LS over any other system I've seen.
But maybe thats just me....best advice I could offer would be to decide what works for you and go for it.....good luck.

 

[tucker3940]

In my opinion there are basically three ways of dealing with the issue of filtration.
1. Man Made Filtration (Canisters, Wet/Dry Filters, etc)
2. Natural (Berlin, Refugiums, etc)
3. Use a combination of the two.
If you choose the first route, many people will not use a dsb. But, if you want a more natural approach you can use live sand and live rock (in conjunction with a protein skimmer) to recreate what happens in nature (nitrogen cycle). Both methods can work, or a combination of the two may be what you want to do. The decision will come down to your financial situation (though neither are very cheap) and what interests you. Personnally I like the idea of recreating a natural ecosystem as closely as possible. Many people will claim that one way or the other will be easier or provide better conditions, but I think that it really comes down to how well you maintain whatever system you decide to build. If you want to go the natural approach then I would recommend researching the modern Berlin method of filtration. Whatever you decide, do your research and don't try to cut many corners or you'll wind up with a system that doesn't really work.

 

[mlm]

Personally I agree with NMreef and thinj the DSB/LR is the way to go. It has work so well for me that I do not even run a protien skimmer in my tank. I use a little carbon in the sump about once a month and change about 10% of the water every couple of weeks and everything looks great in my tank.
Good luck.

 

[bobothewizard]

This is a freaky subject if you ask me. From what ive seen there are 2 versions that "work" for a reef tank, work is a bad word to use but you know what I mean. I have seen extremely nice 150 gallon tank(s) with no sand what so ever in them and they are just gorgeous. One draw back to this, and this is where the opionion part comes in, is they IMHO look bad or cheesy. I mean rock sitting on the bottom of your tank with no substrate just seems unatural. But with this there are some pluses and also some minuses.
On the plus side - Very easy to clean and keep clean. Just get one of those vacumes and suck all the nasty stuff up right from the bottom. You can also move stuff around in your tank without having to worry about kicking up sand and having it blow all over your tank.
Down side - This "method" requires you to do heavy skimming, the 150 tanks i saw with no sand had 6 foot skimmers on em. Could be personal choice for the 6 foot skimmer im not sure. Lots of calcium suppliments need to be added since some of our calcium would come from the substrate deteriorating, well no substrate no deterioration.
They are just some of the pluses and minuses i could think of quick. On a side not I do not like 5 - 6 inch sand beds, i just think it looks pretty silly filling up the bottom 1/8th of your tank with sand. I run a nice 2 1/2 - 3 inch sandbed, and the only reason i put the sand bed in mine was for show. I have had my tank up and running for almost 2 years and the funny part about it was most of the time it only had 80 pounds of live sand and 60 pounds of live rock. This is low for a 120 gallon but i havent had any major problems with it. Im just starting to add more now. Any way, take the pros and cons of the argument and youll find out its more personal preference than anything else. Just like most of the aquarium articles and advice coming out is mostly personal advice saying that they made this way work and you can too.
Hope this helps..

 

[traxryu]

Thanks alot guys. I think all the aswers helped out alot. An I think I will put the bed of sand down. Thanks again.

 

[slick]

Are you going to go with 4-6 inches for a DSB or just a small amount?

 

[quazi]

Check out this article by Julian Sprung:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...02/feature.htm
It is a great resource on the subject.
Personally, my tank went from an OK reef to a "too much growth I have to cut my corals up and break them apart and give them away" reef. The only change I made was to add 2 inches of sand to my long established (over 12 years) tank. I believe the fauna and the de-nitrification of the sand bed are major factors. It is not that you cannot have a great tank without one, it just works better when you have one.
As for keeping it "clean," the sand sifters do this for you. I generally do not clean the sand. However, about twice a year I will stir part of it up and vacuum the cloud out. I have been told this is not necessary, but I do it anyway. I would not do this too often, as it upsets the sand balance and can do more harm than good.

 

[saltyrich]

I love my dsb. It's about 4.5 - 5 inches deep. I've never had to clean it. That to me is the benifit of a properly set up dsb. It is practically self-maintaining. Get a good sand bed kit with a diversity of critters in it and you'll never have to clean anything.

 

[tucker3940]

Be careful what, and how many, sand sifters you decide to get as some will eat all the fauna that lives in the dsb.

 

[saltyrich]

Good idea. Stay away from sand sifting starfish. When I said critters, I meant pods, micro stars, mini-brittle stars, nassarius and cerith snails, fighting conchs, various types of worms like spaghetti and bristlworms. Stuff like that. Sorry for not clarifying.