I think it was TRL #11 the Co-Sponsor (not sure of his name) said he pumped water through a 5 gallon bucket of sand and this reduced his nitrates. Was this live sand? I thought nitrate reduction occurs in anerobic conditions. Pumping oxegenated water through live sand doesn't seem like it would be anerobic? Am I wrong/missing something? I'm looking to combat a never ending algae battle with a lower maintenance method than sucking it out/changing the water every week. I do run a Phosban reactor and it seems to have helped. Raising my Alkalinity to 8.2 AM/8.4 PM seems to have helped to with hair but now its slimy green, brown and or red--layers on the sand/rocks. I used to drip Kalk but it makes such a mess in the sump (white film that eventually falls to the bottom). Anyway, I might try the bucket thing if it might help and if I can make some room for it under my tank. And I'll look up that Marine S.A.T product you talked about.
THX!!!
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I believe Bobby has now removed the standpipe from his RDSB and just has water flowing across it. Your understanding is the same as mine. Anaerobic conditions is what you want in a DSB, remote or not.
I have seen the RDSB work for a guy that has a 300 gal FOWLR with big angels, tangs and triggers and other fish. This is a ripe situation for out of sight Nitrate readings yet, he reported the nitrates ranged from 5 to 10 ppm, a very acceptable range. Of course, he was also doing the normal maintenance things, like water changes, too.
You can start with dry (dead) sand and seed the top with LS if you want or just let it go "live" on it's own. Once you start the water flowing it will inoculate the DSB with the bacteria from the DT. If you wanted to speed the process up without buying LS, put a piece of LR on top. That will seed it, too.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
John, that's not the system I use. I'm an ardent fan of DSBs in the DT and sump/refugium. But, no you don't pump water to the bottom and allow it to trickle up. You should introduce sand borrowing worms, such as the Medusa worms, Loimia sp, shown on pages 170 & 171 in "Reef Invertebrates"or Sipunculid Peanut worms shown on page 183 in the same book by Calfo and Fenner. Here are pictures of those two worms...
The action of the worms crawling through the sand is how the water is drawn into the lower anaerobic layers where the Nitrate conversion occurs.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
oh very nice ty. i was just listening to a tr live ep lately and one of the hosts described using a 5g bucket of sand and pumping water through a pipe to the bottom of the bucket
Thank you FishNerd for asking and thanks to Dick for answering. I am finally moving into a new flat and will be setting up my 120g system and this helps out a lot because I was thinking of going with a SSB(approximately 3 in) in the DT and doing DSBs in the fuge(3 in to 4 in) and in a section of the sump(6 in plus). Do you think this is enough DSB to keep my nitrates down?
__________________ Clarence 55g sumpless mixed reef(soon to be 120g)
DSB(2 to 6 inches)aprox. 80 lbs,LR aprox. 60 t0 80 lbs.,Coralife 220 Protein Skimmer,CPR HOB Refugium with Fiji Mud Member of TRS Member of SDMAS
RIP Sarracino Ciro 12/16/04 - 4/3/08
That's hard to say with certainty. It will help. The 3" in the DT may get a little anaerobic activity. If you do 4" in the refugium that definitely will and the 6"+ will be the main de-nitrater. I could be enough. You still have to monitor it with test kits as all of us do. Keep up with water changes, use RO/DI and you will probably be OK.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
Thanks to all for your responses. I will check out episode 88 John. Given the information, I adding a dsb to my sump may be an easy solution for me. It isn't huge but I could probably put 4 to 6 inches deep by about 10 or 12 inches square (display is a 125 with a ssb). One comment from the show though was that the DSB should not be lit. I'm growing Chatemorpha (sp?) in the sump now so I keep it lit at night. Given that people keep a dsb in their dt, can it really be that big a deal??? THanks again for all the comments.
Whoever said that a DSB should not be lit is totally wrong. It doesn't have to be lit to be active BUT, DSBs in display tanks are obviously lit for long periods of time.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
