Just thinking out loud

[treesprite]

I moved and I have to re-skin my stand (haven't re-started tank yet). I have to make the skin so that it makes the tank look smaller (don't ask). While I was thinking that I could accomplish the goal by making the tank look shallower, by making the skin a few inches taller than the tank trim (and hood lower than top trim), it occurred to me that 1. I wouldn't want to have to look below the top of the skin to see things on the bottom of the tank, and 2. maybe I could take advantage of the taller skin to hide a DSB, while the DSB would make the bottom of the tank the top of the sand bed instead of inches below it.

 

The last time I had an in-tank DSB, about 12 or 13 years ago, in a 16g DIY AIO nano, it gave me the only tank I have ever had that had pristine water while I basically put no effort into it. I had no mechanical filtration, dosed nothing, and only did a water change every 3 or 4 months (the only reason I put the DSB in that tank was to make less distance between a PC light fixture and the corals I put in the tank, because I already had the fixture laying around and wasn't going to buy a better one).

 

I have doubts about in-tank DSBs because they can go bad after while. I have no expectation for this tank to be running more than 5 years, so I think I should go for it.

 

 

[Steve G]

As you probably know I am already a fan of DSBs so I say go for it. It doesn't matter where you put the trim. I like to keep the sandbed visible (not covered by trim). First, you could change your mind and it would look weird (and things can shift around, especially if you have a lot of flow, and the floor of your reef could fall below the trim line). Second, the sandbed is "dark" because if you're blasting the tank with light, it will not get illuminated by anything but your room light, so people don't notice it.  Third, if you do notice it, it's actually quite interesting to look at it, in my opinion. I love seeing the layers against the glass, worm trails, and other interesting evidence of life. It's like an ant farm.

[treesprite]

12 hours ago, Steve G said:

As you probably know I am already a fan of DSBs so I say go for it. It doesn't matter where you put the trim. I like to keep the sandbed visible (not covered by trim). First, you could change your mind and it would look weird (and things can shift around, especially if you have a lot of flow, and the floor of your reef could fall below the trim line). Second, the sandbed is "dark" because if you're blasting the tank with light, it will not get illuminated by anything but your room light, so people don't notice it.  Third, if you do notice it, it's actually quite interesting to look at it, in my opinion. I love seeing the layers against the glass, worm trails, and other interesting evidence of life. It's like an ant farm.

 

Thanks for the encouragement ?

 

I have to be creative in finding a way to make a 75g tank look like it's not bigger than a 50g tank, so I have to cover up part of it regardless of anything else. If the sand bed surface is approximately where the stand skin is, a person won't be able to see that there are actually 5 more inches of tank under the skin.

[treesprite]

Anyone know how much sand in lbs this would be for a 48x18 footprint? I've only got 15 lbs of unopened sand. I was so overwhelmed moving that I threw away all of my old sand.

 

Anyone know where I can get all that sand for a decent price?

 

 

[Jon Lazar]

10 hours ago, treesprite said:

Anyone know how much sand in lbs this would be for a 48x18 footprint?

 

Reefcentral has a sand calculator.

[treesprite]

I ordered 170lbs of Carib Sea aragonite, to go with the 30 I already have, so I'll have 200lbs total. I can't afford to get fancy and complicated, so this is all just standard grain size, boring color. 

 

I'm going to need to get some critters for that upper couple inches of sand. I think the dottyback ate all my bristle worms, but with a DSB instead of 1", they will be able to hide.