remote deep sand bed for no3/po4

[RedoubtReef]

I think if you have the space it's a great idea. I'd guess a 100 gallon remote DSB with 6-8 inches would add some diversity as well with all the critters that will grow in there.

 

[stevolough]

What are the basics? Isn't a sand bed basic?

phosphates and nitrates are coming from fish, which comes from feeding. I do feed good, but don't believe in the idea of starving your fish.

I agree 110%. I personally under feed my fish for years afraid of nutrients. My inhabitants have never looked so healthy. I know so much more today because there is so much more information out there. I had a 120 with a 55 for a sump with a plenum for a couple of years and felt I had good success. Unfortunately when I moved I didn’t have room for the 120 so I downsized so I can’t speak of long term success. Bob Goemans Has a site salt corner. He was a big fan of plenums back in the day. I reached out to him in the past and he always responded. Maybe he can give you some insight.

 

[davidwillis]

I don't believe a sand bed has ever been required to keep a reef tank. The nitrogen cycle doesn't depend on the sand bed.

Sand beds can help or actually hurt a system. First things first are good husbandry. If the tank is clean and any waste is removed before it can build up then nutrients shouldn't be an issue.

If you are overfeeding, not cleaning your filters and skimmer frequently and cleaning out your sump as well as your display it's not going to matter what size remote sand bed you put on your tank.

No, a sand bed is not required. I guess the only thing required is a water tight container, water and light. You probably want something with more surface area (unless you do very large daily water changes), it could be rock, sand or any other media.... But we are digressing here, and getting off topic. I just wanted to know what you meant by "the basics". And from your response it sounds like it is maintenance. Yes I maintain my tank very well. There is no rotting food, and I don't see any waste that needs to be removed (I vacuum small sections of my gravel so that the entire bed is vacuumed once a month, but not too much at one time.. I clean my skimmer, and my sump is very clean. I also change my filter floss in my sump every 2-3 days. But I have never had low nutrients (I have some big fish, and feed them well). I have had ok nutrients, and high nutrients, but never low.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

No, a sand bed is not required. I guess the only thing required is a water tight container, water and light. You probably want something with more surface area (unless you do very large daily water changes), it could be rock, sand or any other media.... But we are digressing here, and getting off topic. I just wanted to know what you meant by "the basics". And from your response it sounds like it is maintenance. Yes I maintain my tank very well. There is no rotting food, and I don't see any waste that needs to be removed (I vacuum small sections of my gravel so that the entire bed is vacuumed once a month, but not too much at one time.. I clean my skimmer, and my sump is very clean. I also change my filter floss in my sump every 2-3 days. But I have never had low nutrients (I have some big fish, and feed them well). I have had ok nutrients, and high nutrients, but never low.

What is "low" nutrients to you? What numbers are you chasing?

If everything you are saying is true then I would almost bet a DSB wouldn't do you any good either unless it was huge.

Water changes and a little less feeding would be the basic place to start while maintaining cleanliness and see if you can't drop them and find a happy medium.

If you need something more than that (I haven't seen if you do) an ATS or refugium with cheato would pull more out faster than a DSB.

 

[ti_lavender]

It had been running about a year, but has been offline for a month or so, and just started it back up last week. I used to remove a few cups of algea a week. I have lighting during the night to help maintain ph.

I have a couple of icps, and just sent a new one off last week. For some reason the share link is not working, so I will post the file here of the latest... I have no idea as to why my iodine is high. I have not been adding anything with iodine (that I know of). I just add BRS calcium and soda ash.

Since you’re trying to reduce nutrients, I’d recommend running the ATS 24/7. It’ll take time to see an impact since you just started back up. Do you also run both lights? If you weren’t already make sure to not completely clean the screen. You don’t want to set back the algae’s growth rate. Once it’s running consistently I bet your nutrients will come down. As far as trace elements I’d recommend doing the Captiv8/Reefblueprint products. A few club members having been using that method over Moonshiners. The Captiv8 trace elements can be mixed together so you’re only having to dose 1 container. Then you adjust after each ICP. Pretty nice alternative to doing the drops daily for each trace element you’re dosing.

 

[davidwillis]

What is "low" nutrients to you? What numbers are you chasing?

If everything you are saying is true then I would almost bet a DSB wouldn't do you any good either unless it was huge.

Water changes and a little less feeding would be the basic place to start while maintaining cleanliness and see if you can't drop them and find a happy medium.

If you need something more than that (I haven't seen if you do) an ATS or refugium with cheato would pull more out faster than a DSB.

po4 under 0.1, and n03 under 10. With water changes (2% daily) I could maintain that, but without the water changes I can't (it is about 2-3 times that number).

Yes I have an ATS which works better than when I tried a refugium with cheato.

 

[davidwillis]

Since you’re trying to reduce nutrients, I’d recommend running the ATS 24/7. It’ll take time to see an impact since you just started back up. Do you also run both lights? If you weren’t already make sure to not completely clean the screen. You don’t want to set back the algae’s growth rate. Once it’s running consistently I bet your nutrients will come down. As far as trace elements I’d recommend doing the Captiv8/Reefblueprint products. A few club members having been using that method over Moonshiners. The Captiv8 trace elements can be mixed together so you’re only having to dose 1 container. Then you adjust after each ICP. Pretty nice alternative to doing the drops daily for each trace element you’re dosing.

Interesting.... right now I am just running one side until the algae starts to grow again. If it is too bright, it will take a long time to get going. When I was using it, I had both sides on. I did notice it helped more than biopellets. But I never ran it 24/7, for some reason I thought that was not good? But maybe that was something else.

I had not heard of captive8/reefbluprint products.... I will look into them, but I just purchased all the stuff from moonshiners (which was not cheap), so I will probably at least give it a try for a while.

 

[davidwillis]

I have removed my ATS, it was not really growing (it takes a while to get it going good), and I want to try out a remote deep sand bed. I have also stopped doing water changes. I have never been able to keep nitrates under 30 without an ATS and water changes.

I have added 3 5 gallon buckets of sand, and plan on changing out one bucket every year, so they will not be in use more than 3 years before changed or cleaned.

I got it up and running last wed, oct 18.

Starting nitrate is 35.6 (measured oct 18)

I will test each weak to see how it goes.

 

[davidwillis]

Start No3: 35.6
one week No3: 30.9

I also removed about 4 gallons of denigrate yesterday. I don't think it was doing much, but wanted to make a note of it.

 

[brandon429]

there is nobody in reefing who can purposefully arrange a sandbed to reduce nitrate. sand you add is going to produce it 99% of the time, by retaining waste then slowly leaking it out as it rots, this is why bare bottom reefing came onto the scene vs dsb's of the 90s.

in the 90s, denitrification was written matter-of-factly

and we now see that was totally made up/doesn't happen in the hobby by command, only luck, and rare luck at that. this is why people use bio pellets, carbon dosing, plant uptake, actual nitrate reactors.

sand and rock denitrification is a lark. I'm sure it happens on paper, just not in a controlled way anyone who claims to have attained it could ever repeat in someone else's home.

you'd be better off removing sand from your system vs having more, if lowering nitrate is your goal. (by having a bare bottom tank you can remove waste vs let it compile) and then you can work nitrate out of the water column using one of the factual means.

 

[davidwillis]

I guess I will find out. If my nitrates don't go down after a couple of months then I will know it does not work. I have read it works for some people, but there is not very good documentation. I should not be collecting much waste that is rotting, because I am filtering everything that goes in down to 5 microns.

I did have a tank in the 90's when everyone was doing deep sand beds in the tank. I never did because I did not like the look. I also don't like the look of a bare bottom tank, and hearing from people that have used them, some love them, and others hate them. I do however see the benefit of having no sand, and getting all of the waste out of the water column before it has time to break down. I vacuum it out fairly often, but I know there is a lot missed (under the rocks for example).

I have tried bio pellets (didn't do anything after several months, and a few BRS jugs of pellets), carbon dosing (may not have done it long enough, but after 1 month it was not doing anything other than coating everything with bacteria), and an ATS (I think it did a little, but the algae did good at the start, then turn into slime). I started using a nitrate reactor, but after reading about it, it sounded like it could be problematic over time. The strange thing was that I was getting higher nitrates in the output than the tank was. If I remember correctly the flow needed to be slowed down or something. It probably would have worked if I tuned it correctly, but I never got it working. I was able to get my no3 down to 10-15 by using the ATS, 5 gallons of denitrate with a slow flow rate, and 2% daily water changes. After getting dinos, I let it get back up to 40 because I stopped water changes and took the ATS off line. With water changes it came back down to 30-35. To be honest it may have just been the 2% daily water changes that got it down to 10-15? But I want to reduce those and hopefully keep them down around 10. I have not done any water changes in the last week, and they came down a little, so that is hopeful.

If the sand buckets don't work, then I will need to look into something else. Maybe try carbon dosing again? Maybe a different brand of biopellets or a larger reactor (I was using a bashsea pm3 rated for 300-500 gallon tanks, and had a water flow close to its max of 600 gph).

 

[DCR]

I think it is probably a good idea. I included 3" beds in my tank and refugium based on recommendations by others on this forum (@jda) that they act as denitrification zones. I don't know if this is true, but my nitrates run about 2 ppm with a heavy fish load and feeding schedule. I also think that the first order of control is to establish an environment that consumes the ammonia before it is oxidized to nitrate, but I think the sand bed can be part of the control. I have yet to see where it causes any problems. It has not worked to control phosphates as well, and I have been using a combination of carbon dosing and GFO to control that.

 

[JGT]

If it doesn’t work, check out a thread on here called Donovan’s Nitrate Destroyer. It’s a pretty simple remote way of reducing nitrates using bio balls, bacteria and carbon dosing.

 

[davidwillis]

Yes, I have read that a few years ago... Maybe I will go through it again

 

[davidwillis]

Start No3: 35.6
one week No3: 30.9
two weeks No3: 23.6

Defiantly a downward trend.

 

[Gtinnel]

I may have missed it but on your buckets is the water just flowing over the top of the sand, or are you forcing the water to flow through the sand and just controlling the flow rate?
I have a refugium section in my sump that I have considered making into a dsb so I’m very interested in how this works out for you.

 

[davidwillis]

It is just flowing over the top of the sand.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Start No3: 35.6
one week No3: 30.9
two weeks No3: 23.6

Defiantly a downward trend.

Are you keeping everything consistent? I typically find that when we make changes like these we want them to work so bad that we often, even unknowingly, start to change our pattern to force results...

Not saying you are but could something else also be playing a part in this?

 

[davidwillis]

Are you keeping everything consistent? I typically find that when we make changes like these we want them to work so bad that we often, even unknowingly, start to change our pattern to force results...

Not saying you are but could something else also be playing a part in this?

That is a good point, and something else absolutely could be playing a part. I am constantly doing things. Like I noted earlier, I removed my denitrate, and ATS (was not growing anything). Also this week I added 8 lbs of live rock from TBS, to try to bring in some biodiversity to fight dinos. I am also adding some coral this week.

One of the biggest questions I have is that I started dosing vinegar the first of october (weeks before I started the deep sand bed). I had not noticed any change in nitrates from it, and have not changed the dosing since before I started with the deep sand. I am dosing 211ml daily (on a 300 gallon tank). So maybe it started to kick in? I have actually cut back on my microbactor7. I was dosing it daily (for the past 6 months), but now have only been dosing it a couple times a week.

So it really is not a perfectly controlled system. It would be great if someone could do a test in a perfectly controlled tank. Unfortunately it is hard to do in a tank that I want to see results rather than just use for a test.

Having said that, I have tried dosing vinegar before, and was dosing even more for much longer with no noticeable change. The only way I got my no3 down was using an ATS, and daily water changes, and that went down much slower than what I am seeing now.

So take it for what it is worth. I wish there were more scientific studies on things like this (under a controlled environment). Unfortunately I don't have the means to do that.

 

[davidwillis]

Start No3: 35.6
one week No3: 30.9
two weeks No3: 23.6
three weeks No3: 22.5