Yet another other component arrives today

[Hommeworks]

My brand new Oceanic 155 arrives today. I can't set it up yet because the pedistal and canopy are still being built. So I'll put the final finishing touches on my plenum this weekend, and start loosly sculpting out my reefscape.

[Doug1]

Kewl on the new tank, too bad the stand and stuff isn't ready Just curious why you chose a plenum rather than a deep sand bed or berlin style setup?

[Hommeworks]

Hey Doug,

What interested me about a plenum was the mini-cycle of nutrient breakdown at the sand bed level, as the material cycles through the sand bed into the plenum then back up again. The concept of a 'chemical sink' driving material breakdown in a loop until the end result is as if the material was burned, CO2O, water, and trace elements. Seemed efficent and natural.

I read everything from plenums pose no benefit, to where plenums cause problems. What convinced me was a pamphlet called 'Secrets of a Living Sand Bed'. This explained the benefits and implementation pretty well.

So, I'm going for it. The plenum will be implemented in conjuction with a 5 inch sand bed.

[Doug1]

Interesting, I have looked at a few plenums and the thing I dont like about them is the larger size aragonite particles used for a plenum. While not as bad as the gravel usually used with UGF it still has open spaces that trap waste particals. If you dont have lots of pods and bristle worms to eat it and move it down the food chain it can get problematic at times. I like a large terebellid worm population, but they dont seem to fare as well in larger substrate as they do in a finer grained DSB. I have used DSB for a while now and find them easy to setup and maintain. Both methods work and pretty much the same process is involved with both. Anyway, just curious why you chose what you did, thanks for the reply and have fun with the new tank