Activating my sand bed

[mr9iron]

Ok nano reefers, I have been reading several posts about detrivore kits and how you should keep your sand bed active with these critters. Well I purchased some ls from www.reefland.com which has had detrivore kits added but I dont really have alot of visible life in my sand. I want to add some type of kit but im not sure I wanna pay the price for what the places want, but if I have to I will bite the bullet. Give me some ideas. Also the kits I have been looking at say that they will seed a 55 gal tank so isnt this over kill for my nano and wont a bunch of these critters die off and essentially be a waste.

[kennerd]

I don't think it'll be overkill, since these "seeding"kits are meant to start a population, which is obviously meant to grow. If you introduce a larger "seeding" kit, you'll just be a few steps ahead.

Don't you have another tank? couldn't hurt to pop some more into that one, or post on the tradnig thread & see if you've got any locals that would be interested in splitting an order with you.

[ChrisIsBored]

If you can't get it from another tank, try finding fellow reefers nearby.

Sometimes LFS's have nice setups and you might be able to talk one of the employee's into letting you pull out a cup of sand. I say sometimes because my closest LFS doesn't even use a sandbed for the corals they get in...

[Timbo]

Check out www.rodsreef.com. Rod is a great guy and his det. kits are very reasonably priced and come with a lot of great worms and stuff. I highly recommend him.

Tim

[Pinecone_Jeff]

I've purchased IPSF's Surf Zone Live Sand Activator. While everything was really nice (lots of pods, worms, snails, microhermits, brittle stars, red tang heaven, etc.) the amount of live sand was not that impressive. But it didn't cost an arm and a leg either, just an arm. I would still highly recommend this kit. I used it to seed my 10 gal nano and after almost 2 months, there are way more pods and worms than I started with, or so it seems anyway! Also, if you want to pay a little more, their Mix 'n Match any 9 items from an 18 item list for $99 is a great deal! Plus, this $99 includes free shipping! Ya can't beat that.

I just started a 37 gal with a 6"-8" DSB and I plan on getting IPSF's Live Sand kit as well as Inland Aquatic's detritivore and algae kits. Rod's reef also has some little sand critters for sale too and I'll be getting some things from him. Diversity = Stability and you can't get much more diverse than by getting "kits" from various sources.