wasp

Feelers you were both funny, serious, avoiding confrontation, and not showing off, all at the same time

Low KH won't bother the anemone, however it's easy to raise just stick some baking soda (not baking powder) in the tank. Dissolve a heaped teaspoon in minimum 1/2 litre fresh water, and pour in to the tank slowly to a high flow area. Give it a few minutes then test to see if you need to add some more.

Sounds fun, I'm in!

Oh that's interesting! I've seen them occasionally also, and always wondered what they were. They do swim like a sea snake! Another mystery, once I found my sump swarming with tiny little critters swimming around, so small they could only barely be seen. Lasted a couple of days then gone, never found out what they were.

Tel and Feelers, ROTFL!! :lol: :lol: :lol: You're both sick, but you crack me up!!

If people are'nt going to kill each other!! :lol: :lol:

Good post, quite agree. Each to what works for them..

Six Bucks!! Thanks Drifty I better go get a few tubes!

Well Layton since it's "not in your nature to tiptoe around other peoples sensitivities" you'll appreciate me being straight up & saying that not everything you say, or more often imply, is a fact. I can think particularly in the zeovit threads where much of what you said was pure speculation, something bomber thought up, usually hinted at rather than said outright, and qualified with lots of maybes, what ifs, perhaps, etc. but the purpose was to present a theory of yours as if it was a fact. In that regard you were not being an assett to the forum. As to the subject of this thread, sand, it is certainly worthwhile to present people useful information on some of the dangers / pitfalls. But it is not right to imply that having sand means the tank is doomed or a ticking bomb, when the evidence of real life tanks shows this does not have to be the case. Also, this statement - What mis-information? I have seen opposing methods / ideology, isn't that what a discussion is all about? To brand anything different to how you see things as "mis-information" is too strong. And finally, special eye candy treat, here's a DSB even you'd be proud to own Layton!

I'm not very experienced with this only cycled a few times but have tried lights on, and lights off. There seems to be a different type of skimmate with lights on I think it's because with lights on, as nutrients enter the water column they can be sequestered by unicelled algae or other photosynthetic floating organisms which can then be skimmed. However Layton does have a point that allowing algae to grow on the rock is going to retain some nutrients. What I did a few months ago when I cycled some rock was try to get the best of both worlds, piling up the rock at one end of the tank, and lit the other end to try & provide light for floating phosphate munching organisms. Don't really know if it worked but it didn't do any harm and the rocks stayed nice & white.

Come on Layton, I know you already know that stuff. What happens to nitrate? Maybe it gets turned into nitrogen gas, something a DSB does very well. What happens to phosphate? Maybe it is used by bacteria & single celled algae & is then skimmed. What happens to metals like iron, copper, manganese? Maybe they get eaten by some of your metal eating bacteria. What happens to sulphate? Maybe a lot of different things can happen to sulphate, it's not going to be a worry.

It can be fast(ish), normally with DSB's, there may be some change in the sandbed either known about or not so obvious, that can lead to a release of nasties and cause mayhem in the tank in just a few days. But these events where much more common years ago when other technology such as skimmers were less advanced. An old school of thought was to have a DSB, and no skimmer, and not even much flow. The DSB was supposed to take care of all the waste. But this approach was highly likely to cause problems eventually.

Some "crashes" are caused by overheating or similar disasters, but generally what people refer to as a "crash", is in fact a buildup of phosphate until the algae and related problems become so bad the person is forced to strip the tank & start again. Most often the sand bed will be the culprit, doing exactly what you said, holding crud and accumulating waste. However it does not have to be this way, there are ways to manage a sandbed, as evidenced by some of the long term successful sand containing tanks that exist.

I'm sure it was quantified. What I said was I would like to see that. Otherwise it's too vague we don't know how much effect it would have in an aquarium. But I agree there is likely an effect, but the important question is how much effect, in an aquarium? IE, if the effect is negligeable, then why worry?

You can resize the pics in photobucket if you want. You can also right click on it & see how big the file is

I'd be interested to see any of that quantified. As presented, it is too vague to have any useful relevence to an aquarium.

Truth is there's some great tanks with sand.

Yeah but there's still some very successful tanks with sand. Most of them in fact. Talking about science don't change that fact.

You talking about those red/blue mushrooms upper left? Looks like they have too much light. They will do OK, but would expand more & show better colours in less light.

Plus bottom line is there are some very nice tanks that have run sand for years. No amount of argument will change that, it's about husbandry.

A rather bold statement, and not supported by the evidence.

Another example of a well run sand bed. But don't chuck the macro algae.

Yes very nice. I like the zoos with the red centres. Where did you get those? If the hairy mushroom front bottom gets too big & starts stinging things, he can simply be cut in half.

My own preference for my tank is no sand, this is because I am too lazy to keep a sand bed clean. However having sand in the tank does not mean the tank is doomed to eventually die a gruesome death. The evidence simply does not support that. It's about husbandry, some examples - Aged Salt, the Zeovit.com guru, has had a DSB for 11 years now and his tank is pristine. The Reef Central tanks of the month, arguably a collection of some of the worlds best tanks, nearly all have sand. A local Reefer I know, dumped a big load of 2nd hand sand into his tank, this was followed by an outbreak of cyano and algae. However by following a strict regime of good husbandry he has been able to restore the tank to clean & pristine. Having said all that IMO a person having sand should have a good understanding of the processes involved and a maintenance plan, or trouble might ( or might not ) eventually be on the horizon. But the above examples are cases where a sand bed is run intelligently & causes no problems. I believe what happens in an estuary, does not translate exactly into what happens in an aquarium.

Interesting idea Steve I'll be keen to hear results in a few weeks so do update. I'm also wondering if it could be beneficial to shave another hour off both overlap time, and total time.