[quote=“moliken, post:19, topic:4431”]
rosti, when i was at yr house, i thought you told me that it wasnt’ just depth that made a dsb, but it was just as much grain size. ive seen dunk’s setup. sand my sand bed’s size regular aragonite. he also has at least the last 1/3 of the width of the back of the tank completely rock covered, so there’s no photosynthesis going on. just depth does not make a dsb, right or wrong?? last, if tim had a real dsb running for this long, disturbing it that much would defly be harmful???
btw, the tank is simply gorgeous, clean and healthy. he should take a decent fts.[/quote]
According to Ron (Ron Shimek's Website... AHABS - Issue Six), “best” set up for average home aquarium, DSB should be average .063 mm grains with 4-6 in deep. This is because its average optimum size for critters that hitchhike into our tanks. Everything else is less than desired. Regular size aragonite is to harsh for worms to move through. So technically it’s not what we would call a DSB in reef aquaria, but its still serve some function but may not be optimum efficiency/capacity. I would be afraid to disturb it for sure.
back left is 6" deep and low light never been touched. the front is 4" deep and has been cleaned the back right is 5"deep and never been touched.
phosphates range from 0.0 to 0.7 depending on type of food fed.
nitrates have been undetectably until i moved rock around and removed my denitrate then went to 5-10 now it is zero
i just tested silicates they are undetectable
i just added a second di resin canister in series with the other (why not had an extra)
my calcium is dialing in now to 450 alk is 8.2 and magnesium should be 1300 it was higher last test
I am going to test tomorrow night and will post readings. i suspected that the sand was trapping nutrients when it goes into the water column it is removed but there is constant nutrients possibly being released. that is why i cleaned it i will see how long it stays clean. i do have a lot of water flow two tunze 6105 at the top blowing into each other they alternate 750gph and 3600 gph around that and there is a 2800 gph pump blowing across the bace on 20s off 10s and 1500gph from the other stuff.
ok well to late for the disturbing i will keep an eye on it and test tomorrow i will test everything i can and post
I think we need better images for sure, but if nothing bad happened after cleaning then continue what you being doing with caution, I am sure you know your system better than anybody. See how it reacts and manage accordingly.
Here some shots I just took of functioning DSB.
[quote=“dunk, post:23, topic:4431”]
ok well to late for the disturbing i will keep an eye on it and test tomorrow i will test everything i can and post[/quote]
one last shot of DSB. I am interested to see what your reading are after disturbance and how long it will for cyano to return. At times I see small patch 2x2 in of cyano appear on my DSB but it goes away by itself in few days. I try to feed a lot and if i over do it on week ends (10+) frozen cubes, in next few days cyano patch will appear, but again it goes away by itself. I am very excited and have high hopes for scrubber to add extra capacity to controll phosphates, will see.
thats what my fuge looks like and what the back of the main looks like the front did but i cleaned it. I knew not to clean it and thats why i never did. but this algae is frustrating and i needed to do something it should be ok its about 1/4 of the tank that i cleaned. so it will come back i may just clean the front all the time if this works.
yes i want a scrubber too just with my setup i have no way to set a scrubber up
ok just finished testing and here are the results
calcium 450 (salifert)
alkalinity dkh 9.016 (hanna checker)
phosphate .05-.07 (hanna checker)
nitrate .5-1.0 (salifert)
magnesium 1350 (elos)
ph 8.1-8.2 (salifert)
ph 7.85 (neptune apex) ranged from 7.69 to 7.98 through a week
salinity 1.0255 (refractometer)
temp 79.8 fans engage at 80.0 and shut off at 79.0 this is my max min all day
the only thing is i fed was elos food and pe mysis shrimp today, one cube, that could have brought my phos up or its from sand stirring. Possible the sand bed contains phosphates. thinking about siphoning out sand in small sections weekly? any thoughts?
[quote=“dunk, post:28, topic:4431”]
ok just finished testing and here are the results
calcium 450 (salifert)
alkalinity dkh 9.016 (hanna checker)
phosphate .05-.07 (hanna checker)
nitrate .5-1.0 (salifert)
magnesium 1350 (elos)
ph 8.1-8.2 (salifert)
ph 7.85 (neptune apex) ranged from 7.69 to 7.98 through a week
salinity 1.0255 (refractometer)
temp 79.8 fans engage at 80.0 and shut off at 79.0 this is my max min all day
the only thing is i fed was elos food and pe mysis shrimp today, one cube, that could have brought my phos up or its from sand stirring. Possible the sand bed contains phosphates. thinking about siphoning out sand in small sections weekly? any thoughts?[/quote]
Hanna checkers are the best, aren’t they. I use Alk and Phos checker also. Hope they develop nitrate tester soon.
I would really look into PH value, don’t trust test kits for PH. Re-calibrate your neptune and use its value for PH. There is a reason scientists talk about ocean acidification, PH 7.7-7.9 is too low. Maybe get a CO2 scrubber for your skimmer, it helps a lot or open windows in room your aquarium is to get some fresh air.
Phosphate is little high, try not to feed flake or pellet foods, they are very high in nutrition and packed with phosphate binders, very unnatural, but convenient. I prefer feed more with frozen foods, closer to reef environment as possible.
Don’t be afraid to raise Alk to 12dkh and keep it there. Our world reefs are 75% extinct rite now, so current “natural” Alk is measured at worst time for reef environment. Only 40 years ago oceans Alk was twice as high as it’s now. It’s much much better to keep it high (normal). Read, AHABS… Issue Nine
The Rise and Fall Of Coral Reefs: The Evolution Of, And Impending Extinction Of, Coral Reefs In The Late 21 st Century. What Can Hobbyists Do? Ron Shimek's Website... AHABS - Issue Nine
As far as siphoning (cleaning) sand bed, I think if you are not using it as DSB than cleaning is make perfect sense. For me, one of the reasons I choose DSB is not to put my hands in the aquarium, let it do it’s thing.
BTW Dunk, you have to take a better FTS, without your phones camera:) your reef is way too nice looking!
I mostly feed frozen food but have used san. bay brand I have some left but mostly hikari now i had my alk up around 10-11 but when i raised my calcium it dropped off, also heard that with ultra low nutrient systems high alk will kill sps, I am not ulns yet but want to get there, the only dry food i feed is nori sheets and elos food (no phosphate). Not sure is sand bed is deep enough in the front to be considered dsb but the back is from the side looks like yours. I will add some time to the alk doser and raise it. hanna checkers are nice they now have calcium but theres a waiting list. nitrate is coming. As far as the ph goes i did calibrate the apex, before i calibrated it was 8.1-8.2 I think for some reason they read low. most videos of the apex it shows any where from 7.7 to 7.9, before i bought it i wondered why their ph was so low on the videos. thanks a lot i will try to get a better photo. and size it to post. Pics never capture all the color I think bz350 has an apex maybe he will chime in on his ph readings.