Adding Live Sand to an Established Tank

When I first set up my tank 75 gal FOWRL (75 lbs of LR) several Years ago,
I added 3 inches of sand as well as Live sand. Now I am wondering If I
should add more sand as well as more Live sand for a deeper Sand bed. Your
thoughts are appreciated.

Well the sand would not have to be live as it will readily seed form
whats there since the tank is pretty mature...You may experieince a
mini cycle with live or non live sand, but it should not be a major
problem, if done a bit at a time, as even real live snd is going to
create a cycle of some duration as its bound to have some dead junk in
it. Use a pice of PVC pipe and pour sand down through the pipe to
spread it around so it does not cloud up the water a readily, or
syphon some water out and imerse entire bag or a baggie full of sand
with one corner cut off (sort of like those cones used for decorating
cakes etc with icing
On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 16:48:52 -0500, "Peter Pan"
wrote:
When I first set up my tank 75 gal FOWRL (75 lbs of LR) several Years ago,
I added 3 inches of sand as well as Live sand. Now I am wondering If I
should add more sand as well as more Live sand for a deeper Sand bed. Your
thoughts are appreciated.


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The original frugal ponder ! Koi-ahoi mates....

Hi Peter,

Conventional wisdom about "Deep" Sand Beds implies that the depth
should be 4 to 5 inches but there's more to it than that. Some of the
various flora and fauna in a DSB are quite sensitive to how deep they
are buried and may die off if you add too much depth at one time.
Further, there is a tendency for the diversity of life in a DSB to
diminish over time since some things just don't do as well as others
in a given aquarium.

Consider adding a combination of sand and live sand in a quantity to
increase the depth by 1/8 to 1/4 inch and then repeating the addition
every six months or so (preferably using live sand from a different
source each time). By doing it that way you shouldn't inadvertently
smother anything and you'll insure that the biological diversity in
the bed is maximized.

For more information, take a look at this site:
http://www.ronshimek.com/Online%20Articles%201.htm
Dr. Ron Shimek is probably the best authority available on DSB design
and maintenance and you'll find several articles on the subject on
this site - The DSB articles are grouped at the bottom of the page.

Sedimentally yours,

Alex