worms & pods

[BCooksey]

The sandbed in my refugium is clumping pretty bad. I need some critters. I had some nassarius snails in there but I haven't seen any in a while. Anybody have worms and pods to spare? If not I might order a kit from Inland Aquatics if anyone wants to put an order in.

[afss]

If you're up for a drive to canada, about 20 minutes from the queenston lewiston bridge, then you are welcome to have some of my worms (got loads of em in my sump) as well as some calurpa and whatever pods and mysis shrimp that are in the substrate with the worms etc.
Scott

[Zmann]

BCooksey,
What kind of sand do you have in your sump? If its the Southbend type to my knowledge shouldn't clump. If its the bigger grain sand then you might want to change it out. Just a thought. I don't belive worms and pods will keep it from clumping. If the bed isn't deep you might want to try a sand sifting star if you don't want to change it. If its a deep bed then you might not want to add the Star as this could defeat the purpose of having a deep bed and cause problems for your tank.

[RandyO]

Question.
Is the sand that is clumping very hard to the touch? In other words, does it seem to be bonding together? Or, are the clumps soft, and you can squish them in your hand.
I have seen two kinds of clumping. One is organic material,(soft if squeezed) and the other is the sand bonding together from too much calcium additions (Hard clumps). The latter happend to me when I was heavily dosing B-Ionic. I used to does them into the main tank, and in close time to each other. This caused some of my substrate to bond like cement. It took months for me to break it up.
Just wondering which kind of clumps you have.

[ReeferMac]

The Clumping Randy is describing is the result of calcium carbonate precipitating out of solution. There are only two ways to stop it...

Don't put in so mucn Ca. and Alk. Supplementation, you're putting it in faster than you're using it.

The other way is to wait until the sand develop's a good coating of slime.. the difference between live sand and dead sand hoping to become live. Get a couple lbs. from the LFS, fellow hobbiest, etc., and mix that in with what you have. Feed it too... those bacteria need lots of food to grow and reproduce.

- Mac

[Gary Majchrzak]

Cooksey - I have some 'sump sandbed' critters for you. The worms in it will form tubes that cause 'clumping',though! Contact me.

[BCooksey]

It's a mix of southdown and some from CF. It's only a 10g sump/refugium so there isn't much in there. The bed is about 4" The surface is very hard in one area. (most likely from B-ionic) The rest breaks up very easy. I'm not dosing heavily so I'm not sure what's going on. It probably doesn't mater much because the whole thing will bo coming down soon. I'm so frustrated with the :uzi: 29 I'm going to bite the bullet and buy a bigger reef ready AGA. Not sure what size yet.

[ReeferMac]

90's are nice, but if you're going to give up 4 feet of wall space, a 120's better.

- Mac

[BCooksey]

Hmm... I wonder how many wires I would have to run to get a 120 AGA with dual overflows?

Bryan

[Gary Majchrzak]

Bryan- springtime is the time for aquarium deals, as many folks that attempted one over the winter get rid of their 'mistake'.

[ReeferMac]

Hmm... I wonder how many wires I would have to run to get a 120 AGA with dual overflows?

Bahahaha!!! My house isn't THAT big man... :P

- Mac