I once rigged up a piece of acrylic to make a 6 inch tall wall from
one end to the other of my coral grow-out tank.

The back half of the tank had a 5 inch deep sand bed and the front
half had just a dusting of sand.

I bet that if I'd had a bunch of live rock in there it would have
looked fine.

Erik


On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 17:12:35 -0700, Juan Valdez
wrote:

I'm in the process of planning out my 29 gal. reef tank. My question
relates to the deep sand bed. I know that the deep bed denitrifies
better because there are anaerobic areas where bacteria can break
nitrates down. I'm wondering if one could "simulate" the effect of a
deep sand bed with a shallow(er) bed by putting a semi-permiable
barrier over the lower bed, and then putting more live sand on top of
that.

I was thinking of putting down an inch of live sand, then my
undergravel filter plate, and then another inch or two of sand. I'm
trying to avoid having 5-6 inches of live sand in my tank.

Thanks,
Juan