Starting a new 120

[buzzword]

Hello all, I have been reading up on stasrting a new tank for about 3 weeks now, I have read Natural reef aquariums, The New Reef Aquarium, and will start on the Conscientoius Marine Aquarist soon. But I feel that I have gotten just as good of information from all of your posts here, thanks. :cheer: I am probably going to do a 30 gal refugium under the tank, what are anyone's thoughts on this and do I need over a 4 inch sand bed, seems excessive. i am going to start with about 90lbs of LR, is that enough? I purchased 2 4X65w Current PC's to start is that sufficient? Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks All.

 

[buzzword]

Ok I just read the sand bed question posed by another person so I guess the concensous is 6 inch. Any other thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[ren99]

I am ponding on this too. Try to measure 6 inches up from the bottom of the tank. That is a very high sand bed. is it necessary?

 

[1journeyman]

Depends if you are going for a DSB or not. If you aren't looking for the denitrifcation benefit of a deep sand bed then you can go with a 1-2 inch sand bed.

 

[buzzword]

What about having the refugium, could this allow me to stick with a 4 inch sand bed? Will the refugium make a difference?

 

[1journeyman]

wetwebmedia has some great articles on deep sand beds.
The point of having a 4-6 inch sand bed is to provide a couple of inches of sand that are deprived of oxygen. This allows anaerobic bacteria to grow. Nitrate fixing bacteria is anaerobic. You can use less sand, but you will not create a deep sand bed.
In other words, you could have a 5000 gallon aquarium with 1-2 inches of sand as substrate, but you wouldn't get the benefits of a deep sand bed. In order to convert nitrate to gas you must have anaerobic bacteria. Hope that makes sense.

 

[buzzword]

Thanks for the input journeman I appreciate it. So I will go 4-6 inch then thanks.