YoungFishBreeder
Fish Fanatic
Sorry i hate to write such a small post but what's a DSB?
Whats A Dsb
- Thread starter YoungFishBreeder
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Miss Wiggle
Practically perfect in every way
deep sand bed
it's a method of filtration, can't remember exactly how it works but i'm sure you'll find plenty of info through google
it's a method of filtration, can't remember exactly how it works but i'm sure you'll find plenty of info through google
YoungFishBreeder
Fish Fanatic
Thanks Tried To google Dsb in several different ways and came up with nothing.
jeffery
Fish Fanatic
all i did was googel deep sand bed filter and i got this
and much more hope it helps
In the early days of reef keeping many tanks were left with either a clinically bare base or a minimal sprinkling of sand to allow easy cleaning and prevent the build up of unwanted nutrients in the systems. Nowadays people prefer a more natural look, and as such, they require more than just a sprinkling of sand. This move to a natural looking system has gone hand in hand with people now looking at a tank as being a miniature ecosystem and the sand bed is often viewed as a functional part of the tank.
What is the function of a deep sand bed ?
The hope, certainly in my tank, is that it will act both as a nitrate filter and a supplementary calcium reactor. The water flow through the sand bed is achieved by diffusion and the activity of resident inverts that circulate water through the bed, acting rather like a pump on a filter. The important point is that the deeper down you go, the less oxygen is available. This is due to both the inverts and resident bacteria continuously using up oxygen.
It is this lowering of oxygen levels that is critical to the functional aspect of a deep sand bed.
You must be crazy ..... Don't I need oxygen ?
Usually oxygen is all important in a tank. We want lots of it for the inhabitants, and to allow the bacteria on our filter medium to break the waste products down by oxidation from the more poisonous ammonia to less harmful nitrite, then finally to a relatively non toxic nitrate. This is basically one side of the nitrate cycle.
The problem is that although the end product nitrate is not toxic to most of the inhabitants, it does help to encourage algae blooms. Usually this steady addition of nitrate is diluted out by the regular water changes carried out as part of the tank's maintenance, but depending on the stocking levels you can end up having to change more water than you would like, in an attempt to control the nitrate levels
Give me a Super Bug
Interestingly, there are specialist bacteria that, in low oxygen levels, make a living out of forcing the process in the other direction, by a process of reduction. Turning nitrate first into nitrite (ouch) and then breaking this down to release the nitrogen as a gas. This is the other side of the great nitrogen cycle, which is harder to achieve.
The depth of the bed (and particle size) are critical to provide the correct conditions. If the sand bed is not deep enough, and the oxygen level does not drop enough, the sand bed will produce nitrite from the nitrate. A disaster. Conversely, if the sand bed is too deep, the entire bottom of the bed can turn anoxic and produce sulphur dioxide. If this happens the affected sand turns black. If this black area is disturbed or sampled it releases the characteristic rotten egg smell. This chemical is of course toxic. However in practice, it is not a problem in a few very small and isolated spots . Larger areas obviously leach enough sulphur dioxide into the water to poison and destroy the rest of the sand bed, and soon afterwards the rest of your livestock.
The low oxygen environment also has a lower pH, (more acidic) this slowly dissolves the aragonite/coral sand, releasing calcium and a low level of trace elements into the water. This has the positive effect of reducing the workload of the calcium reactor. The only downside is that you do need to replace the dissolved substrate to maintain your desired depth.
Tell me how
There are many ideas for producing the 'best' functional sand bed, and I don't pretend to have the ultimate answer. All I can report is what I have found has worked well for me over the years, and how I have achieved it.
My system uses a deep sand bed. In my tank this is about 10 cm (4 inches) deep and contains a wide variety of grain size. About 50% of the sand for the new tank came from the old display and propagation tanks. This meant that it was well colonised by a range of beneficial creatures, many of which live at different levels in the sand bed. Therefore if all the sand was placed into the new tank at once, many of the surface dwelling creatures would be suffocated and I would have been left with a foul smelling mess. To prevent this, the sand bed has been slowly built up, allowing the creatures to organise themselves into their preferred levels. Each time the sand bed looked 'organised' with worms etc living naturally, I added about 2cm of sand and waited for inhabitants to reposition themselves again, before adding more. Obviously this is not a problem if you are using new sand. This will gradually be colonised from above, especially if you invest in some high quality living rock. Or, if possible, seed the sand bed from a matured source.
The secret ingredient! (No it's not a little bottle with a hefty price attached)
Although I have used deep sand beds for a number of years with success, it was not until I made a change to the sand bed mix that I realised I had not been tapping its full potential. What made the difference was being tipped off about this by reading an interesting piece of research on the relationship between particle size and colonisation levels. It appears much of the life in a sand bed appreciates a very small particle size - in practice the grain size is little more than sand dust. Often termed super fine sand.
When I slowly added this to my sand bed the result was amazing. The amount of colonising life that you could see through the front glass seemed to undergo a population explosion over a period of a few weeks.
A word of warning - don't add too much as this will reduce water flow through the bed by diffusion and can lower the oxygen level to dangerous levels. I have found that adding it gradually (5mm at a time) and allowing the inhabitants to mix it for me is the most successful method.
and much more hope it helps
In the early days of reef keeping many tanks were left with either a clinically bare base or a minimal sprinkling of sand to allow easy cleaning and prevent the build up of unwanted nutrients in the systems. Nowadays people prefer a more natural look, and as such, they require more than just a sprinkling of sand. This move to a natural looking system has gone hand in hand with people now looking at a tank as being a miniature ecosystem and the sand bed is often viewed as a functional part of the tank.
What is the function of a deep sand bed ?
The hope, certainly in my tank, is that it will act both as a nitrate filter and a supplementary calcium reactor. The water flow through the sand bed is achieved by diffusion and the activity of resident inverts that circulate water through the bed, acting rather like a pump on a filter. The important point is that the deeper down you go, the less oxygen is available. This is due to both the inverts and resident bacteria continuously using up oxygen.
It is this lowering of oxygen levels that is critical to the functional aspect of a deep sand bed.
You must be crazy ..... Don't I need oxygen ?
Usually oxygen is all important in a tank. We want lots of it for the inhabitants, and to allow the bacteria on our filter medium to break the waste products down by oxidation from the more poisonous ammonia to less harmful nitrite, then finally to a relatively non toxic nitrate. This is basically one side of the nitrate cycle.
The problem is that although the end product nitrate is not toxic to most of the inhabitants, it does help to encourage algae blooms. Usually this steady addition of nitrate is diluted out by the regular water changes carried out as part of the tank's maintenance, but depending on the stocking levels you can end up having to change more water than you would like, in an attempt to control the nitrate levels
Give me a Super Bug
Interestingly, there are specialist bacteria that, in low oxygen levels, make a living out of forcing the process in the other direction, by a process of reduction. Turning nitrate first into nitrite (ouch) and then breaking this down to release the nitrogen as a gas. This is the other side of the great nitrogen cycle, which is harder to achieve.
The depth of the bed (and particle size) are critical to provide the correct conditions. If the sand bed is not deep enough, and the oxygen level does not drop enough, the sand bed will produce nitrite from the nitrate. A disaster. Conversely, if the sand bed is too deep, the entire bottom of the bed can turn anoxic and produce sulphur dioxide. If this happens the affected sand turns black. If this black area is disturbed or sampled it releases the characteristic rotten egg smell. This chemical is of course toxic. However in practice, it is not a problem in a few very small and isolated spots . Larger areas obviously leach enough sulphur dioxide into the water to poison and destroy the rest of the sand bed, and soon afterwards the rest of your livestock.
The low oxygen environment also has a lower pH, (more acidic) this slowly dissolves the aragonite/coral sand, releasing calcium and a low level of trace elements into the water. This has the positive effect of reducing the workload of the calcium reactor. The only downside is that you do need to replace the dissolved substrate to maintain your desired depth.
Tell me how
There are many ideas for producing the 'best' functional sand bed, and I don't pretend to have the ultimate answer. All I can report is what I have found has worked well for me over the years, and how I have achieved it.
My system uses a deep sand bed. In my tank this is about 10 cm (4 inches) deep and contains a wide variety of grain size. About 50% of the sand for the new tank came from the old display and propagation tanks. This meant that it was well colonised by a range of beneficial creatures, many of which live at different levels in the sand bed. Therefore if all the sand was placed into the new tank at once, many of the surface dwelling creatures would be suffocated and I would have been left with a foul smelling mess. To prevent this, the sand bed has been slowly built up, allowing the creatures to organise themselves into their preferred levels. Each time the sand bed looked 'organised' with worms etc living naturally, I added about 2cm of sand and waited for inhabitants to reposition themselves again, before adding more. Obviously this is not a problem if you are using new sand. This will gradually be colonised from above, especially if you invest in some high quality living rock. Or, if possible, seed the sand bed from a matured source.
The secret ingredient! (No it's not a little bottle with a hefty price attached)
Although I have used deep sand beds for a number of years with success, it was not until I made a change to the sand bed mix that I realised I had not been tapping its full potential. What made the difference was being tipped off about this by reading an interesting piece of research on the relationship between particle size and colonisation levels. It appears much of the life in a sand bed appreciates a very small particle size - in practice the grain size is little more than sand dust. Often termed super fine sand.
When I slowly added this to my sand bed the result was amazing. The amount of colonising life that you could see through the front glass seemed to undergo a population explosion over a period of a few weeks.
A word of warning - don't add too much as this will reduce water flow through the bed by diffusion and can lower the oxygen level to dangerous levels. I have found that adding it gradually (5mm at a time) and allowing the inhabitants to mix it for me is the most successful method.
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