Just a few questions

[HogWinslow]

I've been reading the forum for a few months now and have some questions.

 

1) How deep is a deep sand bed? I have 20 lbs of live sand in my 10 gallon tank. It's anywere from 2-3 inches deep. Is this to deep?

 

2) Is crushed coral good for anything? I have a 5 gallon bucket full. Should I dump it in a hole in the woods or should I save it for some unknown reason.

 

3) I read that " pods " are good. To help them to multiply it's a good idea to put some rubble in a corner. I took some old dead live rock from the garage and broke it up with my wifes lobster cracker. I them bleached it and put it in the sun. How long before I can put it in the tank?

 

4) Light? It's my understanding that " Watts " determines how deep the light reaches in the tank. The " Heat " or " K " value determines the intensidy or what corals can be kept under it. Most corals light light around the 6,500K range but we keep them under 10,000K because it looks better to the human eye. If this is true could you keep corals under 6,500K and add a 15 watt normal output bulb in the daylight or any other spectrum just to help out the human eye?

 

5) I've searched for low light corals and seen lots of comments to use the " Garf " site. I've gone there and found nothing. Can someone help me out and direct me where to go on the website?

 

6) I added 5 Turbo snails the other day and they are about as lazy as can be. Is this typical? They just sit in the same area all day. They will move in a 5 inch radius and that's it. I finally had to take one off the rock and stick it to the front glass. He hasn't moved since. He can't be dead because he's still stuck. Were Turbos a bad choice? Should I try some other snails?

 

Thanks to all that respond,

Hogwinslow

[Spencerx]

1) i think that 2-3 is fine. but thats JMO...

2) hmm ive never used it, but i would save it, u might want to use it in a new tank or fuge or something

3)i would run it under fresh water until there is no bleach smell anymore, then leave it in the sun.

4)I think 6500k looks fine to the human eye. 10k is too blue for me, alot of people use 6500k and actinics and they look great.

5) what exactly are you looking for on the site? did u browse the directory on the left side?

 

HTH

[harbingerofthefish]

1) ditto spencer. In a 10 your going to eat up a lot of room with a deep DSB. 2-3 is cool. I have 1 1/2" in my 7, and get bubbles.

 

2)yeah, if you have it keep it, you never know.

 

3) IMO if bleached touched anything tank related I would chunk it. Maybe paranoia, maybe over cautious. Why did you bleach it?

 

4) sure- great answer I know.

 

5) IME (very little at that) zoos, shrooms, even some LPS (my blastomussa for one)

 

GARFs site has a lot of good stuff on it, but thier web designer fubared the funtionallity of the site. You have to do too much digging to find what you really want.

[HogWinslow]

Any responses about the turbo's?

 

I found what I was looking for on the Garf site. I didn't find it on Garf thou.

[harbingerofthefish]

I have a couple of turbos. Some days they cruise around and others they just sit there. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Of course I also like to have a mix of snails. Some for this, some for that.

[BIGBOB]

i have noticed that as far as snails go many anchor during the day, and at night cruise around; the more snails the better, as 5 wont do a lot

maybee for a 10 gal. about 15.

[jdsabin1]

There isn't enough surface area in a nano for a DSB to function as a DSB (does that make sense?). There needs to be much more open sand space for denitrification to take place on a consistent level, although you do get some small bubbles rising from the sandbed indicating denitrification, but it's not enough to matter.

 

For a DSB to work properly you need at least 3 inches and a lot of open sand space where there's no rock or coral and what happens is, there are bacteria living deep in the sandbed where the oxygen levels are 1ppm or less and this bacteria uses nitrate as a food source and turns it into nitrogen gas and it just dissipates out of the aquarium, those are the bubbles I mentioned above coming out of the sandbed.

 

Does this make sense?

 

HTH!