Pictures of Ninong's tank in progress.

[zhenya]

I think he wants to make sure she doesn't borrow his new one.

Could very well be that

Originally Posted by Ninong

It is not supposed to be stirred or siphoned. It should have as much open space as possible but in those spots where there is live rock, the live rock should make contact with the sand bed to facilitate migration between the live rock and the sand bed. Some are now saying that bacterial migration between the sand bed and the live rock might pose problems, but that's coming from the anti-DSB camp.

Yes, I've followed this personally as much as I could but I can actually see some detritus accumulating in a certain spot and it is not being prossesed. I'm getting a feeling that the infauna population is either collapsing or already collapsed Also, I failed in trying to explain this theories to my premna and she's been excavating near anemone and faning the sand almost to the bare glass on occasion
I do see some bristle worms in the sand though and a few large annelids are also present(spoted them at night with the red bulb flashlight) I see them scavenging on the rock but not the sand and wonder why?

[Ninong]

This is really frustrating to say the least. The pumps were turned on at 7 p.m. on July 8th., nearly six days ago, and I still have cloudy water.

I removed the Tunze Stream and reinstalled the left side Sea-Swirl. I am running both Sea-Swirls plus the tank's plumbed Lockline return with the LG 4-MDQX-SC, so I estimate that I have probably no more than 300 to 350 gph coming out of each of the three outlets. All three nozzles are aimed as close to the surface as possible in an attempt to leave the sand bed as undisturbed as possible.

Before restarting the pumps, I smoothed out the sand bed. Again! That's when I realized that the shifting sand bed had moved my rock support structures closer to the front glass of the tank. I will try to rearrange things when I add the live rock. Whenever that happens is anybody's guess at this point.

Sometime between now and the addition of the first fish or corals I will have to decide whether I really want to go with this 6" DSB or not. Recent reports have raised doubts in my mind about the long-term viability of DSB's based solely on the experiences of a few hobbyists who have decided to do away with their DSB's. It's not just a question of whether they might present a problem three or four years down the road, they present an immediate problem in limiting the amount of flow you can achieve without kicking up the sand bed. This is giving me an even bigger headache than trying to decide on the live rock. :eek3:

So... Trying to look on the bright side, I am surprised and relieved that I haven't managed to electrocute myself or flood the hardwood floor with saltwater.

[Reefland]

Ninong,

Well I have read every post in this thread, some a couple of times and I thought I would chime in with some encouragement.

The cloud will settle!

I haven't seen anything mentioned about you trying to run any type of filter floss or anything to aid in the process. I know your mainly focused on getting the flow optimum from your available sources however when the rock goes in, it will inevitablly change everything and though you might get things set up now without disturbing the bed, it could all change with rock in there. You might consider trying to find 5 or 10lbs of LS to add to the top of your Southdown sand bed to help keep it settled a little bit. It will help to kick start the bacterial colonies too.

Lastly, leave your sand bed alone; don't remove it. If your concerned about the long term effects (if any) then don't, you'll have you a 300gal set up by the time you have to worry about anything.

Well I'm off to work now,
Scott

[Ninong]

Ninong,

Well I have read every post in this thread, some a couple of times and I thought I would chime in with some encouragement.

The cloud will settle!

Easy for you to say!

I haven't seen anything mentioned about you trying to run any type of filter floss or anything to aid in the process.

Yes, I'm running the stock Lifereef Berlin Filter System sump with the foam filter block just after the inlet chamber and the polyester filter pad just over the outlet chamber. I rinse both of them out every morning and the polyester batting thingy is always filthy.

I know your mainly focused on getting the flow optimum from your available sources however when the rock goes in, it will inevitablly change everything and though you might get things set up now without disturbing the bed, it could all change with rock in there. You might consider trying to find 5 or 10lbs of LS to add to the top of your Southdown sand bed to help keep it settled a little bit. It will help to kick start the bacterial colonies too.

I was trying to run too much circulation through an empty tank with just a deep, very fine particle sand bed and it just can't be done. Or at least it can't be done in five or six days. Now that I have removed the Tunze Stream, things are starting to clear up. And yes, I already have a bacterial colony started because I threw in a piece of raw fish a few days ago.

Lastly, leave your sand bed alone; don't remove it. If your concerned about the long term effects (if any) then don't, you'll have you a 300gal set up by the time you have to worry about anything.

So far I am leaning in that direction, leaving the sand bed in there. I am just concerned that some of the guys that I know quite well are reporting that they are giving up on their DSB's right now. If I thought I would keep this tank set up more than four years, I might seriously consider going without the DSB, but I will probably take it down within three years anyway so maybe I'll go ahead with it as planned.

[Ninong]

The water has cleared up enough that I can clearly see all of the sand bed through the front glass of the tank. The sand bed depth ranges from 3" to 7.5" -- there are two craters, both against the back wall of the tank, one directly beneath where the Tunze Stream was first positioned and another a little farther to the right. I don't believe these irregularities in the sand bed landscaping have anything to do with the present circulation, I believe they are the result of the previous high volume circulation when I had the Tunze Stream running.

I will leave the sand bed alone until I am ready to install the live rock.

[zhenya]

Well, finally some better news,Ninong. I'm glad it cleared up for you finally.

[Reefland]

The water has cleared up enough that I can clearly see all of the sand bed through the front glass of the tank. The sand bed depth ranges from 3" to 7.5" -- there are two craters, both against the back wall of the tank, one directly beneath where the Tunze Stream was first positioned and another a little farther to the right. I don't believe these irregularities in the sand bed landscaping have anything to do with the present circulation, I believe they are the result of the previous high volume circulation when I had the Tunze Stream running.

I will leave the sand bed alone until I am ready to install the live rock.

Told ya so!

That is good to hear. Are you going to "finalize" your live rock order now?

[Ninong]

"Cleared up enough that I can clearly see all of the sand bed" is not the same thing as crystal clear, but I finally have glitter lines on the sand bed!

I am amazed at how uneven the sand bed is but I hate to touch it again since it would probably take another 24 hours to settle down. And the shifting sand bed moved my rock support structures forward a good two inches. I may try to push them back a little when I put the rock in there.

I'm still thinking about the live rock order. I still haven't decided between transshipped rock and fully cured rock. Transshipped is a lot cheaper but you are limited as to what you can get due to the box sizes and then there is the hassle of curing it inside your bedroom!!! Fully cured may be the more prudent way to go for someone in my circumstances but then I may have to shop around for new sources of fully cured Kaelini. I can get fully cured Fiji, Fiji Buna Branch and Marshall from Indiana but the guy in Maryland was totally out and he just started curing Kaelini yesterday. I guess I could wait until next week and get some semi-cured Kaelini from him. Would that only create a semi-mess in my room? :eek3: I mean, if that's the case, maybe I should just get the transshipped???

Put me down as still: UNDECIDED

[organicreefer]

id dump the sand and go with more flow-the flow will be of more benefit to youre sps than the sand will..nitrates wont be a factor -trust me -and the amount of food produced by a sand bed is overrated to say the least.

how much flow are you going to be able to have with the sand in there?-imo you need a good 3000gph or more in youre tank if you plan on mostly sps...

[Reefland]

"Cleared up enough that I can clearly see all of the sand bed" is not the same thing as crystal clear, but I finally have glitter lines on the sand bed!

I am amazed at how uneven the sand bed is but I hate to touch it again since it would probably take another 24 hours to settle down. And the shifting sand bed moved my rock support structures forward a good two inches. I may try to push them back a little when I put the rock in there.

I'm still thinking about the live rock order. I still haven't decided between transshipped rock and fully cured rock. Transshipped is a lot cheaper but you are limited as to what you can get due to the box sizes and then there is the hassle of curing it inside your bedroom!!!! Fully cured may be the more prudent way to go for someone in my circumstances but then I may have to shop around for new sources of fully cured Kaelini. I can get fully cured Fiji, Fiji Buna Branch and Marshall from Indiana but the guy in Maryland was totally out and he just started curing Kaelini yesterday. I guess I could wait until next week and get some semi-cured Kaelini from him. Would that only create a semi-mess in my room? :eek3: I mean, if that's the case, maybe I should just get the transshipped???

Put me down as still: UNDECIDED

Go with the real stinky uncured rock and get a couple of Glade Plugins. Cured or not there is going to be a smell to it but I don't think it would be so bad that you couldn't bare it for a day or two. If your really concerned about it stay away from the transshipped rock and just get some semi-cured rock and you'll be fine. I never experienced an unbareable smell from uncured live rock and my tank has always been in the living area of the house. Even when we were getting large batches or LR it wasn't unbareable in the shop. I don't think it will be a problem, just get the skimmer skimming!

[Ninong]

Quelle surprise!

My nephew just returned from Florida and when he was taking his stuff out of the boat, he found the camera that he thought had gone overboard. He had set it down in a precarious spot and when he glanced at it he saw it sliding away. He thought it had gone overboard but it was still in the boat mixed in with the beach towels.

So... Here are the latest pictures of the tank. The water is not yet crystal clear but it's a lot clearer than it was when I still had the Tunze Blender in there keeping the sand bed in perpetual motion and turning my tank into a giant snow globe. :eek3:

As a point of reference, the black trim at the bottom of the tank is 5" tall, concealing about 4" of the sand bed, and the tops of the bottom rock support structures are 5.75" tall. The sand bed has two low spots in the back that are only about 3.5" deep and the high spots are about 7.5" deep. I will wait until I put the live rock in the tank before I fool with the sand bed again.









Update on live rock decision: I decided to go with fully cured live rock for a number of reasons. I don't need the hassle of introducing the rest of the family to the "smell of the ocean" at this particular moment in time and I never could figure out how I could get a variety of rock types without ordering two much rock if I went with transshipped.

I have decided to start with only 160 lbs of fully cured live rock: 60% Kaelini, 30% Buna Spiney and 10% Tonga Branch. The Kaelini will be the base structure of the reef with the Buna Spiney above that and I requested a couple of pieces of Tonga Branch just for the fun of it.

The rock is supposed to be shipped tomorrow afternoon via air freight and I expect that it will probably be here by Friday morning.

[organicreefer]

wow youre really doing it -youre really setting it up..congratulations bud -i know how excited you must be

keep those pics coming -cant wait to see youre "roquascape"

[Minh Nguyen]

The water is still very cloudy but not quite as cloudy as last night. .......

I know that Minh Nguyen had a beautiful, large reeftank with a very deep sand bed but that tank was set up less than three years when it crashed due to a mechanical problem unrelated to the deep sand bed. I'm not sure if that was his first experience with deep sand beds or not, but I will have to ask him that question.

Ninong,
I was really busy the last week and could not answer your question until now. The water will clear especially when you put some rock in there. The rock will also protect the sand and decrease the circulation by a huge amount. You may want to put in coarser sands/crushed corals on the surface where the current is particularly high.
My sand bed works beautifully. I had a very deep sand bed up to 14 inches at the back and 10-12 inches in the front. I will remove some of the sand and will have a sand bed of about 8 inches (my tank has a cover of 8 inches in the front. I don't particularly like the look of the sand bed on the glass). I have a huge amount of worms and other animals in my sand. I think at 3 years, I don't have any problem with my sand bed. My coral still growing at an amazing rate after 3 years. I had a little problem with coral growth about 1 year ago. It was solved when I remove nearly 50% of my corals. I think that the animals in the sand contribute lots to the rate of grow of my corals.
I keep tank with deep sand bed since 1997. I also took that tank down after 3 years when I moved to Corpus Christi from Seattle. I will set up a tank with deep sand bed in the future. IMO, DSB is the most successful way to keep some of the more sensitive corals like Goniopora and Alveopora. My Goni, and Alveopora were thriving, and still doing well after my tank crashed (now in a tank of a friend who also have a DSB)
Good luck with your tank. Plan it well and only add kalk with a dosing pump.
Minh Nguyen

[Ninong]

Minh, thanks for your advice.

I am planning on making my DSB approximately 7" deep all over. I need to get at least 1" - 1.5" above the tops of my base rock support structure to facilitate migration of sand bed infauna in the upper aerobic layer. If I had made my rock supports a little shorter I could have gone with just a 6" DSB as I originally planned.

I have 10-lbs of "very live sand" coming with my live rock shipment. That will get things started. Once the rock is in the tank I will be better able to judge how much more live sand I will need to reach my final DSB depth. I plan on getting 20-lbs of Fiji live sand transshipped through L.A. and may pick up a little Florida Keys live sand locally. I'm hoping to have about a 1/2" top layer of Fiji live sand that might include some Florida live sand over the Southdown. I'll wait another couple of months or so before I try the Tunze Stream again. I may be able to make it work if I can get it rigidly attached to the wall of the tank so that it doesn't slant down towards the sand bed. I'm hoping to be able to construct the main rock structure on the right side of the tank so that it will absorb the force of the Tunze Stream.

There is a good chance that this tank will only be up for three or four years and I am hoping that my DSB will last at least that long without any major problems.

[Joaco]

The advantage of the Sea-Swirl is that it oscillates back and forth and can cover your whole tank that way. The advantage of the Tunze Stream is that it has a very broad, high volume flow and the pricier models have flow volume control. All of the Tunze Stream models can be controlled with a Tunze tide simulation controller.

That's why I was thinking of hooking up my future Tunze Streams to oscillating devices (to combine the advantages of both)
I remember an oscillating device that was made to attach a regular powerhead to it. This was about 3 years ago, are they still around? don´t remember who sold them or made them

But I think the tide simulation controller should be enough to randomize flow in the new 630 gal

Joaco

[Joaco]

The main advantage of the Tunze Stream models is that you get a very large amount of flow without having to buy two or three Ampmasters to produce it. In fact, four of the top Tunze Stream units producing 3175 gph each = 12,700 gph. You would need three or four Ampmasters on a closed loop running eleven 1" Sea-Swirls to match that.

That is E-X-A-C-T-L-Y why I'm going with the Tunze Streams for both 630 gal tanks (unless something makes me change my mind down the road )

-The Tunze Stream set would draw less electricy than the 4 Ampmasters in closed loops (4 x AMP3K = still draw 5.2 amp )
-I can easier hide the Streams in the rockwork of a 630 gal (i.e. one in the center of the tank if I want to)
-I can much easier control random tides with the Tunze controller than for example with a George Fisher actuator valve on a T plumbed closed loop (valve: $300+ if I remember correctly)


But I don't want to go into details about my future setup, we are talking about YOURS here (I will later start one of my own for the 630 gal tanks)

Sea-Swirls are fairly new in the hobby and the Tunze Streams are even newer. Time will tell which ones hold up best in the long run.

I love my Sea-Swirls. If Tunze's Streams are as durable as the Turbelle, I will be a happy camper


Joaco

[Joaco]

Phosphate is something that is not processed in a DSB according to what Dr. Ron wrote in his articles on DSB methodology. He mentions this and recommends macroalgae harvesting from either the main display or an attached refugium as one way of exporting phosphate. I do not have an attached refugium yet and may have a difficult time trying to squeeze one in anywhere near the main display tank without turning my room into an LFS.

Dr. Ron also said that by far the most effective and fast way to remove PO4 is to precipitate it out of solution by dripping Kalkwasser into the venturi intake of the skimmer, where it will be exported with the skimmate as calcium phosphate.
Plus by dripping Kalkwasser there, you increase skimming action by saponification.

If you ONLY consider the PO4 removal issue, you wouldn't have a problem with a DIY Kalkwasser doser close to the skimmer (or even a small dosing pump) in your cabinet

Joaco

[Joaco]

even certain snails like Stomatella are not reproducing anymore.Their population literally exploded in the first year(I only started with one that came on some rock) but I don't see as many anymore.

IMO it could be related with a change towards better quality. With higher nutrient levels, you have more microalgae, that's what they eat...and that's how their population explodes.
It also explodes when they start to smoke dynamite...

Joaco

[Joaco]

even certain snails like Stomatella are not reproducing anymore.Their population literally exploded in the first year(I only started with one that came on some rock) but I don't see as many anymore.The whole side walls of the tank were covered with them and the pods,rock as well.

It could be because your tank matured and nutrient leves are lower now. Stomatella varia eats microalgae, and you would have more for them to feed on with a higher nutrient load in the tank, as during the first year of setup.
The pods could be vanishing because fishes might be eating them and they can't keep up with the reproduction rate, thus being depleted. Plus, again the less food/nutrients issue.
Hint: refugium (if you don't already have one) : you will see both Stomatellas and pods by the tons in there ;)

Joaco

[Ninong]

Joaco,

For a 630-gal SPS aquarium, I would consider 8 Tunze Streams on one of their controllers. Check out the possibilities: http://www.tunze.com/usa/index.html?lang=en-gb

You can control 8 Streams by using two branch adapters with the controller. You would be controlling 4 pairs of pumps instead of just 4 individual pumps. You can vary the flow volume, start them up sequentially, do tide simulations and lots of other neat stuff.