How much live sand?

Says who


On Fri, 08 Dec 2006 19:35:23 GMT, Wayne Sallee
wrote:

Nope, having a deep sand bed is not a problem.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



Tristan wrote on 12/5/2006 5:58 PM:

It depends on what critters you have in the tank and if they like to
burrow deep in the sand bed. At one time a deep sand bed was the only
way to go. Now its a different story. Its a root of hydrogen sulphide
buildup if the bed is not stirred up and sifted by the critters. It
does help stabilize a tank to some degree that is however if there is
enough of it, but too much as I stated leads to problems much worse.

There is even well known folks in the marine trade that are making and
using false sand substrate bottoms. A friend had about a 3" bedin a 15
gal tank. May have even been 4" deep, and it always had a bad problem
of red slime algae. He had lots of circulation was choosey on whata
foods and the amounts he fed, yet his red slime persisted. The tank
was up for about 2 years and was trouble free when this red slime
occured. He also started to have green algae problems as well. After
pulling his hair out the final solution was found, which was reducing
the depth of the sand bed so it did not harbor any or at least as
much organics and fuel for algaes etc. He reduced the bed to 1" or so,
and almost over night redslime problems went away and his hair algae
problems started to dissapate as well.



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I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!