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Is it true that it is not worth trying to have a DSB in a small tank? I thought I heard something about there not being enough space for the DSB to be effective.
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Here's a link to a thread where I posed the question about the effectiveness of DSB's in nanos to Dr. Ron Shimek back when he had a forum on RC.
Nano DSB
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I was thinking of making a rock bottom with quick setting cement if a DSB would not make sense., or just having a small sand bed.I haven't read much about this though... I would like to learn more.
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The problem that I see with the cement bottom, is that you'd essentially have a BB system. But without a smooth surface (glass or starboard) you'd have tons of little nooks and crannies where detritus could collect. With a BB system, you want to avoid letting detritus settle on the bottom to rot. In a BB setup, you want lots of flow along the bottom of the tank to keep the detritus suspended in the water column, so that it can be removed by heavy, wet skimming. IMO a setup like this (with the cement rock bottom) would be difficult to keep, and ultimately not work very well.
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If I go with a small sand bed and the tank is FOWLR I'm not sure what I will do to keep the sand bed sifted. I'm not sure that I want a sifting fish if the tank will look like a sandstorm. How do you clean(or is there a need to clean) a sand bed when there are no organisms to do it? Do you siphon it out like cleaning gravel beds in FW tanks, or will the sand be too light?
You can't just let it alone or bad stuff will happen, right?
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If you go with a shallow sand bed, there will still be organisms in it. And there still is the potential for pockets of toxic gases to form, so IMO siphoning would be a bad idea (the caveat being, if you siphon it on a regular basis, there wouldn't be a chance for the gas pockets to form). I would not add a sand sifting goby to a tank this small, instead, I use nassarius snails. The do a good job of churning the sand, without causing a sandstorm, and without eating all of the organisms that live in the sand.
GL
