will this work

[Neal359]

i a little scared of puting in a dsb bacuse of whats invalved with taking evrything out ext. what i was thinking was adding 4-5 inches of sand in the sump it wouldnt be a refugium but would i get some of the benifits of the dsb and would it be better to add some litte tto it also

[organicreefer]

i put in my dsb after my tank was setup and didnt move / remove anything.i just rinsed my sand (omg!) lightly in water from a change (mainly to wet it)and put it in 18 oz cup at a time if you keep the cup upright as you submerge it to the bottom where you then dump it out (with pumps off)youre tank will barely cloud at all.i added four inches of coral sand and seeded with stuff from ipsf two weeks after adding dsb i had bubbles and worm trails visible through the tank walls and no nitrates also im intthe process of setting up a new tank and this sand bed and the sand bed from another tank will be combined into the sump/refugium as i plan on just an inch or two of black sand (when i find it)in the display

[Neal359]

my nitrats are around 15-20ppm usinf good ro water and i see all kinds of things in the sand should i just add more of what i have???

[organicreefer]

thats exactly what i did if you add say an inch or so at a time with a couple days in between im sure it will work fine also thats what my nitrates used to run at now i change water once a month and havent been able to detect nitrates (i stopped testing)now i only test for alk/calcium