What is a DSB?
- Thread starter s.a. boy
- Start date
underthesea
Member
DSB = Deep Sand Bed
underthesea
Member
You are going to want about 3" to 4" of sand so you migh be looling at about 150 or so pounds of sand maybe more. Can you get ahold at your local home depot southdown play sand? If so it is the cheapist way to go and it is from the same company that everybody gets there aquarium sand from. If you can get it you can have all you want for about 12 dollars versis about 100 dollars. Then you can seed the sand with live rock.
underthesea
Member
It is and isn't it will look really nice once you do get it set up thogh and it will be a good bio filter once it is seeded with lr or a little ls
ramey70
Member
Silica sands are actually okay for a DSB. Silicates won't dissolve into saltwater at a ph in the range aquariums are maintained. Do some searches on the inernet and you'll find that many people use silica sands for DSB. One of my regrets is that I let my LFS sell me tons of Carib-Sea when I could have just bough that snow white stuff from Toys-R-Us.
underthesea
Member
silica will also cause an alge problem in the tank stay away from that type. That is why they sell ro units to get rid if silicates because it causes alge problems
jim672
Member
Now I'm a little confused. I did make the crushed coral mistake jimi mentions and had an algea bloom of monumental proportions. I got rid of that and added 25lbs of ls to my existing 40 lbs of lr in my 45 gal. tank. I have a Fluval 304, a Prizm protein skimmer and 3 power heads. I have 3 sand-sifting stars in my clean-up crew.
Do I need to add more ls?
Do I need to add more ls?
ramey70
Member
Silica sands are not made of free silicates. They are actually made from quartz. The silica in quartz is in more stable state than that of the glass in your aquarium. It is actually easier for diatoms and such to derive silicates from the glass. Quartz is one of the most stable minerals so the amount of free ions available to dissolve in water is minimal if at all.