sandbed depth in a 30g long...

Okay, the 10g is going to get moved into a 30g long in early October. So I'm planning first, and you guys get the brunt of my questions.... :-)

 

The 30g long tank is 36" long, 13" front-to-back, and 17" tall.

 

How deep a sand bed should I use?

1" or less?

1-2"?

4" or more?

 

I have my suspicions, and suggestions from people who do reefs but don't concentrate on nanos, so I want more input.

 

I think I have enough live sand for about 2" of depth in this tank. Any additional sand would be Southdown. If I go with less LS in this tank, the rest would go into a 'fuge tank.

 

This will be a primarily-LPS tank, with a cabbage coral, a green star polyps, and some shrooms. Desired LPSs include a hammer, frogspawn, brain, candycane, blaustasoma, encrusting gorgonian, and maybe a couple others I'm forgetting.

are you plan to setup as dsb? if does, must at least 4", else you shouldn't need to add any more sands.

I haven't decided if I should do a DSB or not. I know a DSB needs at least 4" of sand, so there are no poll options for 2"-4". If I don't do a DSB, I'll keep the sand depth at 2" or less -- I'm looking for opinions on whether <1" or 1"-2" is better.

Using my tank as an example, I used a 3inch sand bed, my tanks foodprint is almost same as yours: 36 x 12

 

I used very fine grade sand to make up for the lack of a very deep bed.

 

All seems to be working fine. Nitrates are being reduced and is lowly lowering.

 

The sand bed is also getting full with critters.

 

If you use sand grain size similar to Southdown stuff, I would use 3-4 inches.

If its larger particle size, I would go upto a max of 5inches as your tank hieght is suitable.

 

Hope this helps somewhat.

I know someone with a 29g who uses a DSB, and it seems to be denitrifying. I think that tank is large enough for a DSB to have an effect, so I would go with 4" at the minimum. If you can go deeper without chewing up too much real estate, it wouldn't hurt.

. tangster would probably rip me on the dsb comment but unless you're going to keep that tank as is for 5+ yrs (current estimates) i wouldn't worry. most peeps futz with their tanks every other month.

Ahh yes, the age old debate of DSB's. I agree with TinyReef, that there are others on this board with far more experience and reef knowledge than myself, but I can offer you my personal experience. I have a 20H with about 5" of substrate. The tank was started this way and cycled in a week and 1/2. The sand bed at three weeks old was full of life. And after adding fish I actually watched the nitrates drop. However, the tank is a baby in being only a few months old, so I will leave the opinions on long term effects up to others who have experienced them, positive or negative. Good Luck:woot:

What about the option fer "3" inches?

well I guess ya know my vote now.

When I posted the poll originally, everything I'd read indicated that you needed the sand bed to be at least 4" deep for the anaerobic critters....

imo it can be more or less. i find 'hard rules' are questionable. :

i just tend to see more problems the deeper it is over time but that doesn't mean necessarily mean non-function.

 

magic today is science tomorrow and sometimes vice versa.