Thomas Bishop wrote:

"Marc Levenson" wrote in message...

Talk about lack of agreement! We posted the exact opposite of each other.



Here's one in favor of you, Marc.

Add as many hermits as you can cram into your tank. Well, okay, maybe not
that many, but about one for every 2 gallons is a general rule. Hermits
will not eat the creatures that make a DSB a DEEP sand bed. They may eat
some of the critters on the surface, but will mainly eat algae when
available. Many thousands of DSB'ers have hermits of all kinds and have
plenty of life in and on the sand bed.

The two people who are against hermits with a DSB can't even spell
"opportunistic." Not trying to be mean, just poking a little fun.

Thomas, If think your DSB is as live as you can get it, why don't you
try an experiment, remove your all of your hermits for 2 months and
compare the amount of life in your sand bed. The hermits will eat
larval forms of most creatures before they get a chance to get into the
sand bed. If you would like to research this a little your self here
are a couple of good links.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/forumd... 3&forumid=40

http://www.rshimek.com/reef/sediment.htm

http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog...ie_061498.html

http://www.reefs.org/library/article...in_shimek.html

There are a lot more, but what makes a deep sand bed work well is the
amount of life in the sand bed, not just that it has a bed that is 3 or
4 inchs deep. With lots of life in the sand you can feed tha tank
heavier plus many of the creatures in the sand will spawn creating
zooplankton in your tank for your corals to eat.

I might not be the best speller but at least I know what I am talking about.