Is DSB crash just a myth?

[Greybeard]

Another anecdotal story for you...

Back in the mid 90's, the rage was to buy 'Southdown' play sand, available cheap through Home Depot, but only in the south. In KCMO, we were importing it by the truckload, and using it in our reefs. I built a 240g reef, using something like 500lbs of Southdown, as I recall. Good 6" bed. Bought sand starters and cultured critters from Leroy at GARF, from Inland Aquatics, IPSF, and got starter cultures from several friend's DSB tanks. Lots of worms, isopods, copepods.

For the first year, it was the most stable, easiest tank I'd ever run. I could grow ANYTHING... and did. 18 months in, I was struggling to keep my Nitrates under control. That DSB makes a wonderful nutrient sponge, but like all sponges, eventually, it's saturated. A year after that, I was able to grow mushrooms, palys, colt coral... that's about it. Months later, I was dumping that sand into a gravel bed in the back yard.

Did it 'crash'? No, not really, but I wasn't dumb enough to disturb that sand, either. When I tore the tank down? Oh, yeah, some prime nastiness in there, for certain.

The one remaining photo... circa 1997.

 

[Cory]

The microfauna in the sandbed are always looking for food and ich cysts that drop into the sandbed appear to be plenty tasty.

Is this opinion or have you actually read or seen something? Because thats feels like a plus to dsb then.

 

[jda]

You also need some real live rock or live sand from the ocean to get that stuff. Bacteria in a bottle will not get it done.

 

[Greybeard]

You also need some real live rock or live sand from the ocean to get that stuff. Bacteria in a bottle will not get it done.

You used to be able to buy sand fauna... Inland Aquatics sold all kinds of live sand dwelling critters. Was a neat place, back in the day. GARF sold their Grunge... still do, I guess, but from what I'm told, it's not the same. Hard to absorb the loss of a trailblazer like Leroy. ISPF is about the only place you can still buy some of the stuff we used to get... Bristle worms, spaghetti worms, mini-stars, amphipods... nowhere near the selection that used to be available.

Oh, even live rock, sand, or rubble... the 'real' stuff you used to get out of the indo pacific was unbelievable. About all you can get shipped wet these days is Gulf farmed stuff... full of gorilla crabs and mantis shrimp... and aiptasia Not the same, at all. Walt Smith is supposedly shipping some farmed stuff out of the pacific, but I've not seen it in person.

 

[OrionN]

DSB does not need to have any special maintenance. . Disturbing it won't cause any special problem either, unless you disrupt the O2 supply to it.
In a DSB system, once the power go out, and anoxia set in, you will start to see all kind of animal and worm craw to the surface any died. I don't need to do deep sand vacuum, but it would not cause problem if you do it other than deplete the fauna in the sand. The more cleaning you do to the sand, the more of the fauna is removed. It does take up a lot of nutrient and process a lot of nutrient.

One think one should not do is to reuse the sand without vigorously cleaning it. DSB have so much life in it, that once it become crashing sand bed or dead sand bed, it would release an incredible amount of nutrient into the tank. If I am going to reuse the sand, I would thoroughly wash it with a garden hose, several cups at a time until clean. This is so energy intensive and sand is so cheap, that I just throw it away, and get new sand, then reseed it with fauna.

 

[Uncle99]

Double screened, 6” DSB with 1” plenum.
27 years

 

[brandon429]

Hey that looks great, how in the world is it all so clean after 3x decades, like the corners of the glass/sand interface and no coralline on back wall? the 2000s alone/ metal halide and vho phase should have opaqued and left skeletons? I can see it scraped up front though, that is a coralline trail yep

 

[User1]

Simon can answer for himself, but here is what I do with mine... in about year 4, I vacuum small sections of it every few months to where I get it all in about a year. This removes the gunk (benign detritus) that can "clog up the works." I also replace some if it since it melts with the lower pH down where the bacteria are working in the anoxic areas.

I have some cucumbers and a few conchs that keep the top layers in good shape.

I've also done this to include the addition of clams purchased from IPSF. Do wonders.

 

[User1]

Another anecdotal story for you...

Back in the mid 90's, the rage was to buy 'Southdown' play sand, available cheap through Home Depot, but only in the south. In KCMO, we were importing it by the truckload, and using it in our reefs. I built a 240g reef, using something like 500lbs of Southdown, as I recall. Good 6" bed. Bought sand starters and cultured critters from Leroy at GARF, from Inland Aquatics, IPSF, and got starter cultures from several friend's DSB tanks. Lots of worms, isopods, copepods.

For the first year, it was the most stable, easiest tank I'd ever run. I could grow ANYTHING... and did. 18 months in, I was struggling to keep my Nitrates under control. That DSB makes a wonderful nutrient sponge, but like all sponges, eventually, it's saturated. A year after that, I was able to grow mushrooms, palys, colt coral... that's about it. Months later, I was dumping that sand into a gravel bed in the back yard.

Did it 'crash'? No, not really, but I wasn't dumb enough to disturb that sand, either. When I tore the tank down? Oh, yeah, some prime nastiness in there, for certain.

The one remaining photo... circa 1997.

Southdown was popular for many reasons one being quality and price. Hard to beat and I used about 18 bags of it myself in my 100 gallon. One of the marine shows paid a visit to the Sacramento area. Couple people picked up a metric ton of the stuff, drove to Ca, and sold it along the way. Pretty interesting to say the least but hey - I was able to score some so didn't mind paying a bit more.

 

[Crabs McJones]

I lost 90% of my coral due to a dirty sandbed. In my opinion yes it's a real thing.

 

[beaslbob]

last time I checked ispf is closed down.

Can't judge on DSB crashes as I use macro algaes to maintain, balance out and stabilize operation. I prefer to use methods that consume co2 and return oxygen, consume ammonia when present then nitrates, plus phosphates and return fish food. To me the whole dsb concept simply doesn't make any sense at all. IMHO using anaerobic/anoxic bacteria to convert nitrate to nitrite to nitrogen gas is not the way to go. Plus with low oxygen that is exactly what cyano bacteria needs.

not to mention when it further converts nitrite to ammonia.

But that's just me and my .02 speculations.

 

[User1]

last time I checked ispf is closed down.

Can't judge on DSB crashes as I use macro algaes to maintain, balance out and stabilize operation. I prefer to use methods that consume co2 and return oxygen, consume ammonia when present then nitrates, plus phosphates and return fish food. To me the whole dsb concept simply doesn't make any sense at all. IMHO using anaerobic/anoxic bacteria to convert nitrate to nitrite to nitrogen gas is not the way to go. Plus with low oxygen that is exactly what cyano bacteria needs.

not to mention when it further converts nitrite to ammonia.

But that's just me and my .02 speculations.

IPSF is around. Just picked up an algae pack from them last month. I don't see them going anywhere any time soon. They have been helping both the community and environments for years now.

 

[beaslbob]

IPSF is around. Just picked up an algae pack from them last month. I don't see them going anywhere any time soon. They have been helping both the community and environments for years now.

thanks. and you're correct.

I was thinking of inland aquatics.

Fortunately I was able to edit the original post.

 

[BZOFIQ]

Another anecdotal story for you...

Back in the mid 90's, the rage was to buy 'Southdown' play sand, available cheap through Home Depot, but only in the south. In KCMO, we were importing it by the truckload, and using it in our reefs. I built a 240g reef, using something like 500lbs of Southdown, as I recall. Good 6" bed. Bought sand starters and cultured critters from Leroy at GARF, from Inland Aquatics, IPSF, and got starter cultures from several friend's DSB tanks. Lots of worms, isopods, copepods.

For the first year, it was the most stable, easiest tank I'd ever run. I could grow ANYTHING... and did. 18 months in, I was struggling to keep my Nitrates under control. That DSB makes a wonderful nutrient sponge, but like all sponges, eventually, it's saturated. A year after that, I was able to grow mushrooms, palys, colt coral... that's about it. Months later, I was dumping that sand into a gravel bed in the back yard.

Did it 'crash'? No, not really, but I wasn't dumb enough to disturb that sand, either. When I tore the tank down? Oh, yeah, some prime nastiness in there, for certain.

Southdown was also available here in NY back then. Then pulled out abruptly.

My last 180G had 3-5 inches of sand across the whole bottom of the display and my fuge had 8" deep sand bed in area about 18" x 24" with water flowing over it. 6 years in and my nutrients were undetectable. Matter of fact, my softies sucked everything out of the water to a point where in my last year I couldn't keep macro algae alive in the fuge and gave up on growing it - not a spec of nuisance algae anywhere. Back and side of the tank were covered in layers of pink coralline.

I never vacuumed the tank and used tap water for most water changes - no seriously! While not a million dollar SPS filled display, it flourished to where there was no more room for stuff to grow. After full 6 years, I had to move and so the setup was disassembled. Still have most of the stuff going in 5 x 40G "temporary" tanks waiting for a final home that I'm meticulously working on (a 250G)

Hard for me to say, different people had different experiences but I think sometimes people are to quick to blame things.

People blame the DSB for failure and when its eliminated they claim success but more often then not when starting anew, they start with updated skimmer, pumps, different lights, stronger powerheads, more knowledge, more water changes, etc, etc, etc, etc and yet they blame the whole fiasco on the DSB.

One thing is for certain in this hobby:

Thousands of hobbyists that have failed without a DSB, can't blame the DSB for their failure.

 

[Hermie]

my solution was to add a plenum and some flow in to the sand bed from below, I figure it's massively increasing my nitrification medium even if no anaerobic bacteria develop

 

[C. Eymann]

Another anecdotal story for you...

Back in the mid 90's, the rage was to buy 'Southdown' play sand, available cheap through Home Depot, but only in the south. In KCMO, we were importing it by the truckload, and using it in our reefs. I built a 240g reef, using something like 500lbs of Southdown, as I recall. Good 6" bed. Bought sand starters and cultured critters from Leroy at GARF, from Inland Aquatics, IPSF, and got starter cultures from several friend's DSB tanks. Lots of worms, isopods, copepods.

For the first year, it was the most stable, easiest tank I'd ever run. I could grow ANYTHING... and did. 18 months in, I was struggling to keep my Nitrates under control. That DSB makes a wonderful nutrient sponge, but like all sponges, eventually, it's saturated. A year after that, I was able to grow mushrooms, palys, colt coral... that's about it. Months later, I was dumping that sand into a gravel bed in the back yard.

Did it 'crash'? No, not really, but I wasn't dumb enough to disturb that sand, either. When I tore the tank down? Oh, yeah, some prime nastiness in there, for certain.

The one remaining photo... circa 1997.

Funny, I remember back when I worked at Waldo Pets in highschool, the owner Cody would go to House of rocks and buy bags and bags of this stuff to put in the shark pond (yes we had an indoor 10ft x3ft deep circular shark pond) that we sold live sand by the scoop out of.
While I never considered using it back then, many people loved it.

 

[ca1ore]

@ca1ore does DSB require periodic maintenance, if so what is involved please?

I don’t do much to mine, other than needing to periodically replenish some sand.

 

[beaslbob]

my solution was to add a plenum and some flow in to the sand bed from below, I figure it's massively increasing my nitrification medium even if no anaerobic bacteria develop

Kinda like a reverse flow undergravel filter

 

[beaslbob]

I always thought it was amazing people would travel miles and miles to get the super duper sand. You know the one that says right on the bag 'not for aquarium use'

 

[tony'stank]

I had a 6 inch DSB for eight years without a problem. After 8 years I had to break down the tank for a cross country move. When I removed the sand bed there was no bad odor and definitely no hydrogen sulfide odor