help me with my sandbed...

jennmac415 · 11-12-2007, 06:44 PM

Not to bring this up again...but today I did a major cleaning...I can tell I have some dead spots ...to back up a bit... when setting up this tank...I had 2 friends helping me out with the plumbing, setting up the RO/DI etc...well, my friend needed me to go to Lowes and get some other plumbing parts... while I was gone, my other friend finished getting the RO unit set up and began filling the tank...he also helped me out by adding the pulverized limestone to the tank... well, 200 lbs were added...more than I had wanted , but I decided to leave it rather than take it out and have a huge mess...and they assured me it was an ok amount...hindsight...I should have shop vacced out right then the amount I wanted to so I could have a shallower sandbed...Don't get me wrong... I appreciated their help, I just did not want a 3-4 inch sandbed... maybe a 2 inch, just for looks...I am not happy with the depth of this sand, err.... limestone...I stirred it up today...it is only 3 months old, so hopefully it will be ok... I just had to do it...there are dead spots everywhere...not black spots just areas where the flow is not keeping stuff suspended... plus this pulverized stuff is already getting so compacted because it is so fine and powdery.. sorry to ramble on... I have just had a mess of a day...total mess...after doing this cleaning in my tank and seeing the sandbed...what I thought was a 3 month old tank that was looking and doing well, now seems to me to be a mess.....

SO.... how can I make the sandbed shallower??? Can I shop vac some of it out slowly in sections and then smooth the sand out around the rocks again so that I don't have a rock slide..... and NO, another thing I did not do is raise the rocks up on lifts... (I really did not know how to do that)...and then after taking a few sections out, and smoothing what is left, around the tank, the bed will be shallower???

Please help...I am an idiot.

I am sorry to make no sense... I am just not happy at all right now.
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jennmac415 · 11-12-2007, 06:46 PM

oh not to mention... that I have a total milkshake in there now...any time you move this limestone stuff around it creates a horrible milkshake so that you can't see even to the back of the tank...my poor babies!!!!
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dobejazz · 11-12-2007, 08:05 PM

Oh no Jenni I'd think you can siphon or shop vac out sand I'd probably do a section each week though rather than all at once - Hopefully someone with more experience will chime in soon

jennmac415 · 11-12-2007, 08:14 PM

thanks, Kelli for your support... right now I just want to cry.. I planned this tank for over a year and looked so forward to it, and right now, I just don't even want to look at it.

VWD · 11-12-2007, 08:37 PM

Jenni, If it was me, I would remove what I wanted out all at once, That way it is done and over with, may be cloudy for awhile but then Your done with it,

Over time I think the sand will get all kinds of stuff growing on ti and won't be the problem anymore when it come to sand storms. I am not a fan of the pulverized limestone.thats just me, I know lots of people do like it, I like a little bigger grain of sand.

It will get better jenni

Fish Eat Fish · 11-12-2007, 09:15 PM

In my cube I went with a pretty deep bed (3-4inch). Im new to this too but from what i hear a deep bed is a good thing as long as you get something to sift the sand. The deeper bed allows more to grow in it and thus process waste more efficiently and quickly. I also didnt mess with the rock lift and just put the rock on the bottom before I added the sand so its stable no matter what. You could use a power head attached to a small hose to get the sand below your rock moving while you hold the rock so it doesnt fall over and it will sink down to the bottom and be stable. Otherwise you risk a fish or crab moving the sand supporting a side of rock and you end up with a crash and maybe a crush. My vote is to keep the bed because whats worse seeing a sandbed or an unhealthy reef? In the ocean the sand is much deeper than 4 inches. Although maybe taking some out and replacing it with crushed shells or somthing with a bigger grain and getting some sand sifters would help.

jennmac415 · 11-12-2007, 09:23 PM

Thanks Vince... good to "see" you by the way... so, how should I go about this? I do want to keep about 2 inches...should i just turn off all the pumps and shop vac out what i want... I was thinking I could vacume out the most from the back, where it is the deepest and then sortof "rearrange" the rest of the sand to get an even covering all over.. you know, where I vacume out the sand, then take some of the remaining sand and just smooth it out over the vaccumed out parts. this way... I won't have to actually vacume th entire tank, but can get rid of most of the volume of sand that i want from the back... does this make sense.. then what is left I just disperse around the tank and since i will have taken out a good amount of sand the depth will be shallower...does this sound like a task from Hades???

What would anyone feeling like I do about my current sandbed do?? Remember, I just set this tank up the middle of August, so the sand bed is not even 3 months old... it is just too deep for my liking.

jennmac415 · 11-12-2007, 09:25 PM

Thanks.. FEF... your idea sounds good, but my rockwork is pretty "involved"....there is no way to just lift one rock and remove the sand from under... also, we are talking about 200 lbs of sand and probably 200 lbs of rock here in a 180 gallon tank...

Geoff · 11-12-2007, 09:31 PM

Jenni- do it all at once. get it over with in one shot. the milkshake is annoying you a lot more than the critters. you can relax on that aspect.

i have found it better to just rebuild the entire thing the way you want it then to do it slowly over time. i have been know to just grab a bunch of buckets, start placing corals and fish in them. then laying towels all over the floor and yanking the LR and placing it all over the place.

as for lifts. they can be as simple as just some 4" PVC pipe cut in 2" sections (the height of your sandbed), or as complicated as Fly's acrylic lifts. you just want the LR off of the sand. one of the worse things you can do is bury the LR in the sand.

Tom likes to drill holes in the sides of the PVC lifts to allow critter crossing and to keep the sandbed as uniform as possible.

G~

tangsandthangs · 11-12-2007, 10:17 PM

I will also be changing my sandbed to. I am guessing I should put in lifts for my LR. So if I have a 4 inch sandbed I should have a 4 inch lift right? Just so long as the LR doesn't rest on the sand correct? And whats the purpose of this? Do I need to have visible space between my LR and the sandbed?

jennmac415 · 11-12-2007, 10:30 PM

Geoff... you really think I need to take everything out?? I LOVE my aquascaping... its the %^&* sand bed depth I don't like... the depth is fine in the front... only 1-1 1/2 inches... its the back where it really gets about 3-4 inches...I am beginning to think I can just somehow take only from the back and a little from the sides... HOW I go about this I don't know yet. Any ideas besides taking everything out?

Fly Guy · 11-12-2007, 10:36 PM

Sorry to hear of your headaches Jenni.

I gotta agree with geoff. Get out the rubbermaids and a powerhead/heater in them to keep your corals and fish happy and just get it done. Instad of turturing yourself over countless hours and days and being unhappy with it.....put aside 8-12 hours, and just do it.

jennmac415 · 11-12-2007, 10:48 PM

AWWW come on... lol I love the aquascaping...I really don't think I have it in me to completely "redo" the tank so to speak...can't I just take some from the back and sides and even the rest out from the front to the back...

Geoff · 11-12-2007, 11:05 PM

do you think you can remove the sand bed without undermining the LR? i would be more worried about siphoning sand out around the LR just to have it collapse on you.

the point of the lifts is to get the LR from touching the sand bed. this allows the LR not to wick up phosphates from the sand bed. it also allows the bacterial turgor to push the phosphates out of the LR and deposit them onto the bottom of the tank as bacterial flock. if the LR was resting on the sand bed then this could not occur and the LR would slowly fill with phosphates untill they start growing algae on them uncontrollably.

the gap between the LR and the sand does not need to be that much. just enough to allow flow between the two.

G~

tdwyatt · 11-12-2007, 11:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tangsandthangs

I will also be changing my sandbed to. I am guessing I should put in lifts for my LR. So if I have a 4 inch sandbed I should have a 4 inch lift right? Just so long as the LR doesn't rest on the sand correct? And whats the purpose of this? Do I need to have visible space between my LR and the sandbed?

There's no rule-of-thumb that says so, but you want enough space between the rock and the sand so that the sand (once it becomes a phosphate sink) does not "wick" phosphate into the rock, and the rock will be able to continue to push out phosphate in the form of bacterial detritus into your tank water. Water circulation then has space to move detrital fallout under the rock, and if the space is adequate and you work the flow correctly, you'll prevent detrital pockets under the rock. This allows the detritus to be exported by having it move out from under the rock into the water column where the skimmer will be able to export it from your system. The trick is to have the right rate of flow with enought velocity to remove and suspend the detritus, without making the sand "dune up" in the front of the tank or end up making a Southdown Milkshake. This may require some tricks, such as putting pipe under the rock with holes drilled in it pointing up into the rock, rather than relying just on horizontal movement of the water with lots of velocity under the rock.

Doing this sometimes requires some experimentation and valving of the flow if you want a sandbed under the rock.

HTH