Possible project idea, throw me some advice!

[ambulocetus]

Hi, I am wanting to set up a longitudinal study on the cycling of nutrients (namely nitrogen) within a marine ecosytem. Basically i want to initiate some a study into deep sand beds and how much/how many/what types and the extent to which the bacteria grow in the dsb environment (and thus if there is any truth in a dsb crash)
Soooo to help me along my way, if you know of any articles published regarding anything to do with the validity of dsb that would really get my initial research rolling. Anything would help, anything which refers to research in this field would be great, and any thoughts from all of you on experimental design would be great! (keep in mind I have to justify any expense, so no 200 gallon tank on the university's budget - more looking in the 10 -29 gal range)

Thanks for your help

 

[darb2]

These cam up when I googled deep sand beds
http://www.rshimek.com/reef/sediment.htm
http://www.simplifiedreefkeeping.com/reef_archive/deepsandbedadvice.html

 

[indy]

I don't have an articles to link, but I belive kdodds at tropicalresouces.net has been keeping the same dsb filtration for 7+ years without incident. She's the longest term I know of personally. Her long term tank has never had a water change and from what I recall is pretty much an ideal reef.

My dsb has only been active for a little over a year and I'm breaking it down soon as I'm upgrading my tank. No problems so far with it, and I've never spoken to anyone that had a crash with one.

 

[captivereefs]

Mine crashed. Tank was 5 years old. I hada blenny dig down into it pretty far. The fish was dead in a day the rest of the tank took about a week to crash out. I did take the corals out before it got to bad thouh. I would never recomend a DSB to anyone.

 

[BillyZ]

IMO, I wouldn't reccomend a blenny to anyone relying on a DSB

 

[quarryshark]

IMO, I wouldn't reccomend a blenny to anyone relying on a DSB

Woa...I just deepened my sand bed to about 4-4.5". I also have a lawnmower blenny in qt. See any potential problems?

 

[BillyZ]

a lawnmower blenny is primarily an algae eater and should be ok for your DSB. While many other blennies are "sand sifters" in that they dig through your DSB and eat the critters they find. IMO, any tank that relies on the DSB for natural filtration should not have livestock that depleats the fauna in the DSB as the fauna that resides in the DSB is part of what makes it work.

 

[swiftwing7]

So would it be better to keep a dsb in a fuge than in the main tank? That way the fuge could use the dsb and the display tank would only need a few inches.

 

[BillyZ]

Lots of folks do exactly that. IMO, the sump would need to be a decent size, 50-60% of the main tank then (JMO, not from experience). Some use a SSB in the main tank and a DSB in the fuge so that if the dsb does "crash" they can simply disconnect the fuge until things are back under control.