deep sand bad and joubert

[Al]

Hi

I'm starting a new marine tank and i would like to try without other
filtration than sand bad, and some pumps, some live rocks

i would like to keep 3 max 4 small fish and maybe some actinodiscus or
discosoma or something like that

i was thinking to make 50% of sand bed with joubert method and 50 DSB 10 cm
high

my tank is 120L, sorry buth i'm italain :-)

i sow live sand in a shop it is coral sand with some water in a plastick
seald bag, it has an expiration date... it is 1st time i see it, do you
know if is good?

whath you think about my tank project and how long do you think it will
take to be fine for fish?

[Chris Gentry]

"Al" > wrote in message
...
> Hi
>
> I'm starting a new marine tank and i would like to try without other
> filtration than sand bad, and some pumps, some live rocks
>
> i would like to keep 3 max 4 small fish and maybe some actinodiscus or
> discosoma or something like that
>
> i was thinking to make 50% of sand bed with joubert method and 50 DSB 10
cm
> high
>
> my tank is 120L, sorry buth i'm italain :-)
>
> i sow live sand in a shop it is coral sand with some water in a plastick
> seald bag, it has an expiration date... it is 1st time i see it, do you
> know if is good?
>
> whath you think about my tank project and how long do you think it will
> take to be fine for fish?

If you are going to put live rock in there, then the sand that is in water
will be fine, but is usually more expensive, so you could just put
dry sand in there and it will eventually turn into 'live' sand. If you
don't add rock, then you can still put the dry sand in there, but you will
have to find another way to seed it. Perhaps some sand from a friends tank?
I'm sure you can find alot of ways to seed a DSB. Even if
you buy one bag of the live sand and the rest dry.

As for cycling the tank, it is just a matter of when the bacteria in the
sand and LR are of a sufficient quantity to support the amount of ammonia
that enters the system. I've heard of a few ways of doing this, but I'm
sure you can do a search on google about cycling your tank. Whether you
cycle with fish or with a piece of shrimp or something, the key is to do
water reading until your ammonia and nitrite show up, and then disappear.
When ammonia and nitrite read zero, then the tank should be ready for fish.