Have to replace refugium tank

[dhoch]

So I just spent the better part of my morning draining my 30 gal refugium taking out all my chaeto LR, and other macro algae cause my tank sprung a leak... As soon as the LFS opens I'm going over to get a new tank.... and drill it.

 

QUestion is what do I do with the sand bed in the refugium...

 

1) replace it with brand new sand and seed it some?

 

2) save as much as possible and maybe add some additional sand to it (for that which I can not get out?

 

Thoughts... recommendations... other ideas?

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

[Grav]

How old / deep is the sand bed? How much of it is there compared to the live sand in your main tank?

 

If it was 6 years old, and 10 inches deep, I'd toss all but a few pounds and start over. If it is 3 months old and 2 inches, I'd save it all.

 

Something in between: say a few years old, I'd prolly give it a real good rinse in salt water to remove most of the detritus.

 

good luck

[dhoch]

It's about 3-4".... Started (with seedings in January) (when I set up the 180 it's for)...

 

I have a 3-6" in the 180 so it's probably about 1/5-1/4 of the amount of sand (maybe less)...

[rocko918]

Why not save it all? I don't really understand your question. Why get rid of any of it? Why even rinse it? Just put it in a bucket with a PH.

[martin]

I'd save all of it and put it in the new tank-minus some sludge. All sorts of critters live in that sand.

[flowerseller]

Why not save it all?

[Lee Stearns]

Actually I concur with Grav's comments- Since it is less than a year- just keep it all.

I do belive in refreshing your sand bed with some new sand over time say after the bed is two plus years- take a bit (1/4-1/3) out and place some new in- This is easy in the fuge- more difficult in the main tank- which is why I have the 2-3 inches in the main tank rather than a true deep sand bed.

Remember the mixed Reef keeping is only part science- The number of variables are so great that the rest is art, or opinion.

Good day Mr Chip!

[dhoch]

I'm going to keep it all and add some new sand... thoughts which should go in first (on the bottom)

 

New sand or old sand

 

Dave

[Caribbean Jake]

mix them, that way you can't go wrong.

[rocko918]

mix them, that way you can't go wrong.

40679[/snapback]

 

 

yep, mixing them up

[dhoch]

Whew.... done... :sweatdrop:

 

now only cleanup left....

 

Tank is a little cloudy from sand (I have low flow through refugium, but it still added some cloudiness to the tank, but all seems good.

 

I guess I'll be using the old turky baster

 

Not the way I wanted to spend about 5 hours of my day....

 

Dave

[Caribbean Jake]

I rather spent 10 hours doing that, than working at the office... tank and hobby before anything else.

[dhoch]

Actually I like my work... I love my tank, but I don't mind going to work...

 

I'm working on being able to monitor more and more from work... I allready have webcamage....

 

http://hochhome.getmyip.com:83

 

Note must have java2 installed for it to work (but you can move the camera around).

 

Dave

[Lee Stearns]

hey let us know when it is working- Like we don't have something to do at work-

[dhoch]

Lee...what do you mean?

 

Web cam is up and working... allthought the front of the tank needs a scraping...

 

You should see a nice purple cap and some dreaded xenia weed (yeah I have to do some work)...

 

Just click the above URL and then click logon to view.

 

Dave

[rocko918]

DAVE!!!! THAT IS SWEET!!!!

 

I just got a web cam to try and do something like this. Have not had the time to mess with it. I may have to pick your brain one time to hel pme out.

[dhoch]

Yeah, and my AC III just arrived so I'm going to have to hook it up and have some way to get at info from that as well... Looking forward to figuring that out

 

I love the web cam... It was great when I first got my blue chin... He wouldn't come out in the begining when I was near the tank, but I could watch through the web cam and see that he was out when I wasn't there... He's a lot bolder now, but still very timid for a trigger (allthough he did bite me once).

 

Dave

[fishface]

I tried the cam from work but didn't connect. Maybe a firewall issue.

 

Sorry that you went thru a leak situation.

 

FF

[dhoch]

FF I would guess that it is... Many places of business block other ports.... this is going through port 83.... I am going to change it evetually to the default port of 80 (for http requests), but then I have to figure out some redirection as I want to serve the ACIII requests from the same port (I'm thinking I'm going to have to put my PC inbetween.

 

Dave

[davelin315]

I'll have to ask you sometime how to hook up the webcam as I was thinking about doing that at school.

 

Anyway, the reason you have to be careful about your sand and transferring it is if it has a significant amount of anaerobic bacteria then you don't want it to be at the top of your bed. Mixing up the bed and going into the anaerobic region will release a lot of the microbubbles that are forming in the bed that you can't necessarily see. Ever wonder why there are bubbles forming on the bed if you have slime algae? It's anaerobic bacteria processing nitrates and releasing gases (one of the byproducts is methane gas from what I understand, hence the "bad" smell when you dig down deep into a sand bed). If you mix this up as well, you will cause die off in the bacteria which, although I'm not altogether convinced of this, could cause a spike in your system, not from the dying off of bacteria, but from the loss of bacteria handling your bio-load.

 

Anything beyond about 2" is considered to be possibly anaerobic, but in a bed that's only been running as long as you've had yours, you probably don't have a significant buildup of waste in the bed (including the byproducts of anaerobic respiration) so it's not as big a deal as say a bed that's been established for a couple of years. Here's an analogy, I had a roommate in college who was kind of a slob (best friend, but dirty!). Anyway, he had a water bed. Even though he had a sheet on top of it (which never got washed), there was a lot of junk on top of the bed, from food to other unsavories... Well, when it was time to move out, he drained the bed and discovered that there was not only stuff on top of the bed, but since things had fallen between the bed and the sideboards, there was also a ton of stuff underneath the water bed bag, and it was not only disgusting and rotting away, but it smelled like methane gas so he tossed the entire set up.

 

Another way to think of it is that your tank is like a landfill. On top, it's a nice pretty system, but underneath in your sand bed (if it's deep enough and is anaerobic) is built up waste that is slowly melting away, only you don't have the pipes releasing the methane gas, you've instead got tiny bubbles coming up from between the grains of sand at such a slow rate that you never notice them until they are trapped by something. You wouldn't want to stir up and turn over a land fill, so that's why you shouldn't do that to a deep sand bed that's established. Also, the die off of critters in your bed by turning it over is a possible tank destabilizer. Another example is a compost heap, when you turn it over, it's pretty gross on top, so why leave the gross stuff on top when you've got a nice clean bed there already?

 

Of course, all of that said, I could be wrong, but that's what I've gathered from reading about them and researching them over the years and I've noticed that if I dig into a deep area of sand, it's never a good result in the tank. Always results in lots of unwanted algae outbreaks and dirty water.

[Guest alex wlazlak]

is there a way to stay away from getting from having anerobic spots or whatever. what is anerobic too?

[davelin315]

Anaerobic means "without oxygen". Anaerobic respiration is the process by which living things use something other than oxygen to survive or breathe. It is natural to have anaerobic respiration in a fish tank. If you have live rock, the purpose of having it is to have anaerobic respiration going on. This takes place inside the rock, which is why porous, lighter rock is more desireable. It allows for more water flow through the rock hence more exposure to denitrifying bacteria.

 

Aerobic respiration is what you and I do, along with most of the visible life around us. This means that breathing takes place with oxygen.

 

There are very few places that are visible that don't utilize aerobic respiration, one of those being (I think) deep in the ocean at the sulfur vents where superheated water is being released from the earth's crust. There are animals that have adapted to the conditions down there that survive with little or no oxygen (I'm not sure which).

 

So, after a long answer, you can't eliminate these anaerobic spots in your tank, but you can eliminate them in a sand bed by keeping it to around 2" or less. This will allow oxygenated water to seep into the bed without losing the oxygen. Also, as long as you keep creatures in your system that will stir the bed, it won't go anaerobic on you. Even a 2" bed will become anaerobic if you don't have any movement in it.