DSB

[Fishiebusiness]

As i understand, it takes the anaerobic conditions found in DSB's to allow for denitration. Since such conditions are hard to come by in nanos, how does denitration occur in our little tanks?

[reef hugger]

water changes  most people do weekly w/c and that will keep the trates down. as long as the tank isn't overstocked or fed to heavily. some denirtration can occur in the lr. another way of controlling trates is with macro algae, either in the main tank or in a refugium. which could house a dsb. hth

[Fishiebusiness]

Hrm... would a 5- 10 gallon refugium with a 3 inch deep sand bed help with denitration and keeping a 10 gal stable?

[reef hugger]

more water = better stablity.

will the ref help, yes.

will the dsb help, i don't know. it may or it may do nothing.

 

i only have about an inch in my tank with no refugium and my nitrates are 0. i do 10% weekly w/c. i also don't have any fish in the tank currently. even when i did i had maybe <5ppm.

 

what do you plan on keeping by the way?

[Toyfreek]

DSB's require surface area to work correctly in a nano surface area is hard to come by. There are no proven benifits to a DSB in a nano sized tank, except to bring your corals closer to the lighting. I have 4 inches in my 7gal bow and i dont, and do not expect to see the results of a larger tank.

HTH,

Toy

[printerdown01]

A deep sand bed is much more effective than LR... I forget the actual numbers, but I do have them around here... Some people feel however that a DSB will cause a nano to crash... -I don't see the logic in this, and have seen many nanos set up with DSBs which run just fine! Honestly I don't think the scare is real, but this is an opinion that hasn't been represented yet in this thread...

[reef hugger]

i agree with printer. i also don't think they are absolutely nessary in a nano.  IMO its more for looks. personnaly, there is not that much room in a nano in the first place. then to have 3"-4" or more, you end up having a third of the tank filled with sand. i don't know about you but, i prefer looking at corals over sand. so the choice is up to you, corals or sand. it also does raise the corals closer to the lights but so does lr. lr has more interesting life growing on it.

[Cam barr]

lr and sand boath play there part in denitratafacation

if you have fake rock and dead sand i bet it would be a lot harder to keep a nano but you dont need an outragous anount of sant 4 inches  is alot of sand in my  forty i prob have 3 inches and i know it helps a ton